Hospital Life...Day 29

Today is Day 29.  I wrote yesterday's update late and just posted it right before midnight, so if you missed reading that, you can read it HERE.

Today has been yet another challenging day - and it's not over yet!  I thought I would get a quick update out while I'm thinking about it.  The list of items of things going on with Peyton is pretty extensive right now.

Last night, Peyton had a fever.  She was started on a second antibiotic yesterday but the night resident changed it to something else to cover for a possible hospital-acquired pneumonia.  Her chest x-ray didn't really show anything definitive in terms of a pneumonia, but that's not unusual for her - and it doesn't mean it's not a pneumonia.

I probably hadn't even mentioned this, but Peyton was transitioned down on the TPN nutrition and back up on her tube feeds.  She has been back on the tube feeds solely since Sunday.  They ran all the labs to check her nutritional status.  Her potassium should be at 3.5.  It was 2.1.  She had to be given an IV bolus of potassium over 2 hours this morning.  They re-checked that value and it came back as 2.2, so she is currently in the middle of a 4 hour IV bolus of potassium.

I haven't mentioned her hemoglobin lately because it has been holding steady for the past week, I think, in the mid-10s.  Over the weekend it dropped into the 9s and then into the 8s.  They've been monitoring it much more frequently.  This morning it was lower at 8.4.  It was rechecked this afternoon and it is now 7.5, only hours after being checked this morning.  It will be rechecked, but that's "blood transfusion low", so what they will do is recheck again in a little while and go from there.  It is possible Peyton will require another transfusion.

A lot of labs have gone in a poor direction since transitioning back on to tube feeds.  The reason for the transition is because of her pancreatic enzyme insufficiency which was recently discovered.  In order to receive her doses of the enzyme, she needed to be back up on her tube feeds at her goal rate {the rate she came in on from home}.  This enzyme insufficiency is a possible reason for her malabsorption and, therefore, malnutrition.  By giving her the enzyme, she should theoretically be absorbing the nutrients she was not absorbing prior to having to start her on TPN.  With the enzyme, she should theoretically have been able to transition her successfully back on to tube feeds since she would theoretically now be able to absorb everything once again.  This does not seem to be the case.

Pain management is still an issue.  They were going to revise the plan to taper her off the morphine and on to something else to help with some of the side effects of morphine.  One of the side effects is urinary retention.  She had to have a catheter put in every 4-6 hours after yesterday afternoon just so they could drain her bladder.  They decided to go ahead and put a foley in today.  The pain management plan is remaining where it was for now.

Peyton's leg still does not look good.  It is the strangest thing.  The redness gets slightly better and slightly worse.  There is a large bruise that appeared but then 30 minutes later it wasn't really there.  One of the residents is concerned that the reason for the drop in her hemoglobin might be due to a bleed happening in her leg.  An ultrasound has been ordered so they can get yet another look.

The gallium scan that was supposed to happen today {part 3 of the 3 step process} is now happening tomorrow.  Nuclear medicine decided that the gallium injected yesterday really needs to sit in her for 48 hours for it to concentrate in any "hot zones" so they can get the best possible images.  Since there is about an 80% chance of getting definitive answer from the scan in general, I am all for waiting until they feel like they can get the best images.

Right now, we are waiting on ultrasound, additional blood work to be done to check hemoglobin and potassium, and then we'll go from there.  I am sure there's more going on with Peyton than "just" this, so if I think of it, I'll catch you up in the next post.

As always, your prayers are appreciated!