Hello dear praying friends and family! Just a quick update tonight as not much hugely new to tell you. . .
Hope has not changed a whole lot, but here is a quick summary of changes for good, and for worse today. . .
Always start with bad, eh!
--Pain is increased to her seroma/front incision site quite a bit today. There is a bit more swelling, but not a lot.
--Fevers continue to persist.
--All cultures came back negative (blood, urine, and blood drainage from seroma), so no answers to what bug is causing infection which tells them what antibiotic(s) is/are best. They are saying that for now, the only option is to consider it a cellulitis (infection in the tissue or skin) which cannot be swabbed or cultured. So it stays a guessing game, and wait and watch and see!
--Hope is experiencing frequency in trips to the bathroom. . . unsure if this is fever related, or something else. I asked for her IV fluids to be adjusted for the bit of fluids she drank today, and so at least it's a bit less fluid every hour over night, so hopefully she can sleep.
--She is exhausted! She looks unwell and has waves of feeling okay with a bit of energy, and then waves of feeling just gross, with chills, numbness, dizziness, pale or flushed depending on temp, increased pain, etc.
--Hope's current IV site is getting irritated and probably will not last for much longer. This means another IV start and will be very stressful for her. We are praying that it will stay intact for the night and morning until seen by Infectious Disease so maybe then we will know how much longer she needs an IV for. If you need it, you need it. . . but if you start a new one and then stop using it a short while later, it's a big bummer! Her site is itching and burning with the administering of each antibiotic dose now and using warm packs to try to help distract her from the discomfort. She's super protective of her hand now as she's so fearful of another poke. She will tell you that she had 4 pokes last week in the hospital, 3 pokes on Friday, and 7 pokes on Saturday, for a total of 14 pokes in the last 2 weeks! She was very thankful for one poke free day at the hospital today!
And now for some of the good changes!
--Redness in the skin around the front incision and over the seroma site is much less today.
--No more severe vertigo today. Just dizziness from time to time.
--WBC count is down from 24 to 15.
--Antibiotics were adjusted. . . one was stopped that would have resulted in a bunch more blood work pokes for Hope and also was a potential cause of the vertigo, and another antibiotic was increased in dosage. We heard that we will likely be seen by the Infectious Disease team tomorrow when they return from the weekend and maybe get some answers as to the best treatment plan and what that may look like.
--Imminent surgery was taken off the table for now, and so she was able to start eating this afternoon, for the first time in 2 days. She ate only about 10 bites of food today, and drank minimal fluid, but still it was something! And no throwing up today!!!
--Her ears were assessed again as a potential cause of the vertigo and nothing was found.
--Hope is diuresing or peeing a ton! She voided 1500 mls in the first 6 hours of being awake this morning! This is great for her starting to get rid of all the puffiness. However it does mean frequent bathroom trips and with being more sore today, it was really hard on her. And tonight at bedtime, she was experiencing frequency and voiding little amounts. Puzzling as infection has already been ruled out. So maybe continued fevers??? It's quite uncomfortable for her and she was having a hard time settling before I left at 10 pm. Trev just texted me though that she is settled now and fevers even started to let up a bit from slowly climbing!
--Hope got a bath/shower today! It was great for her to get clean, however she had terrible shaking chills due to her fever, and she was experiencing terrible pain when sitting up in the tub for the shower. It was pretty miserable, and we wondered if we should have even tried it. But at least it's done now and she's good for a few more days until hopefully feeling better.
We are incredibly tired. . . all four of us! Please pray for God's grace for us, as it will be another short night for us all. It is easy to lose self control and take your tiredness and frustration out on one another. . . so we need to be diligent to be staying focused on the Lord, trusting Him and relying on Him for the strength and provision to NOT sin in our selfishness and exhaustion! We are looking to the mercies of God, which are new every morning (Lamentations 3:22-23), to help us face another day tomorrow! We were supposed to be visiting Trev's grandpa tomorrow for his 85th birthday. Disappointed to miss visiting and celebrating with him. We love you, dear Grandpa Boyd, and wish you a very happy 85th birthday!!!
We are experiencing the ever amazing blessing of God's people. . . both in visitors today, and people arranging to bring us meals. We're already covered all the way to Tuesday. We never take this lightly, how the Lord cares for us through the tangible love and servant heartedness of His people! What a testimony of the amazing blessing of fellowship in Christ! We love each of you, dear praying friends! You are such a grace of God in trying difficult times such as this!!! We praise God for each and every one of YOU, as you are part of this journey with us, and we count it a privilege!!! You are loved!!!
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