Okay, this has been going on for a week, but I didn't want to say anything because things weren't certain. We now have more information, so here goes.
Last Monday, when Mom was at hydration, she spiked a fever of 102.9, just 15 minutes after being normal. She was shaking with the chills. They gave her Tylenol and an anti-biotic, and she normalized enough to go home, with orders to call the doctor on call if she got a fever again overnight, and to go to the doctor in the morning. The infusion nurses took a blood culture from her port, as well as a urine culture, to try to figure out what was causing all this. The initial thought was that she was septic.
At 4am, she spiked a fever of 102.6, so we called the doctor, and because she didn't have the shaking chills, just a fever, he said take Tylenol, which worked.
The next day at the doctor's office, they had preliminary results back from the cultures, saying that she had a staph infection, but they didn't know what strain it was yet. Her urine culture was negative, but the port draw was positive. They gave her hydration and an IV anti-biotic right there in the office, with orders to have an IV anti-biotic every day for the next two weeks, and to get a peripheral blood draw (from her arm, not her port).
Wednesday, she went to the infusion center for hydration again, and they did the peripheral blood draw. They also had the final analysis of the cultures from Monday, and its staph epidermidis. The peripheral draw came back negative, but because they didn't have a peripheral blood draw at the same time as the draw from the port, they didn't know if it was an infection in her port, or an infection in the blood that could have minimized in two days.
Longer story short, she's one week into IV anti-biotics. Next week, when she's finished her second week, they'll do another blood draw, both from her port and peripherally, to see if the staph is still around. If it's gone, great. If it's in her port, but not her peripheral draw, they'll continue anti-biotics to see about killing the infection in her port. Anything after that will have to be crossed at that point. Pray extra hard for her. We need it more than you know right now.
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2 comments:
We continue to pray for you ...and Olivia, too,... for strength & courage to stay the fight and win this latest battle.
We look forward to you getting well enough to come and see us again.
God be with you.
Love, Sandy & John
You are in my prays and thoughts everyday. The girls at the quilt store always ask how you are, so they too are praying you get through this. Hang in there, you are stronger then any one can know.
Love you,
Paulette
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