[tri-med] Re: Philina's Surgical Saga

Wed. Dec. 26, 2001

Philina considerately waited until my sister had left to start acting up
again. She spiked a fever of 103F this morning.  Official diagnosis now is
pneumonia, though she was already on the antibiotics that should knock it
out.  We had an "E-ticket" blood pressure roller coaster ride this
afternoon.
It looked pretty good, but a little too high.  They tweaked her meds, then
it
plunged dangerously low, another tweak and it was skyrocketing higher then
before, rapidly followed by another bottom out to almost none existent with
the
next tweak. Finally tweaked it back to a little too high, but felt it was
the
lesser of the evils.  They have now changed the dilution of her main blood
pressure med, and also how fast they turn it up and down.  EEG study showed
no
seizure activity.  They were going to do a follow up Cat Scan of her head,
but
it was postponed due to the blood pressure problem.
----------------------------------------
Thurs. Dec 27, 2001

Cat Scan was done this morning.  All they found was the same funky structure
we
already knew about, and that she also officially now has sinusitis.
Cultured out
as the same stuff as in her lungs, which she's already being treated for.
Blood &
urine cultures were both okay.  Blood work shows just a high white cell
count. Not
surprising with pneumonia & sinusitis.  She had a good night, and is stabile
this
evening, but her blood pressure went dangerously low again when they took
her off
the vent for the cat scan.  She is also still needing Tylenol around the
clock for
her elevated temperatures, but her left lung looks much clearer in today's
x-ray.
Over 2 weeks now since her surgery, and we're back to at least square one on
recovery
time, compliments of the pneumonia/sinusitis (cultured: strep, staph &
influenza).
The IV in her hand has been discontinued again though, so she only has one
of those
now.  She's still being kept totally sedated, and they've changed her blood
pressure
medicine again, since the one she was on seemed counter productive even at
the lower
concentration.
-----------------------------------------
Fri. Dec 28, 2001

They've discontinued the EEG study.  I forget how many days now they've been
monitoring her brain waves for 2 minutes every hour, but as I predicted all
they
found was normal brain wave activity.  I still get to say the kid has never
been
know to have a seizure.  My big concern at this point is this.  Her
temperature
was back up to 101+F orally this AM, and on x-ray she's got a new
infiltration of
yuck into her left lung.  I asked the nurse just how long she's been on this
regime
of full spectrum antibiotics that's suppose to knock out everything that
cultured,
and she said, "A long time".  Whoa....somethin' just ain't right here!!!

To be continued.....

Fawna


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