Hospital Life...Day 30

Today is Day 30.  If you missed yesterday's post, you can read that HERE.

This morning got off to a busy start.  By 9:00 am everything was loaded up and ready for going down to Nuclear Medicine for her gallium scan.  This scan was in the room across the hall from where she was on Monday and used a different type of camera.  Unlike the scan on Monday, Peyton had to be transferred from her bed onto a table for the scan.  They put a slide board under her and then shifted her onto that, then onto the table, then removed the slide board.  It was the easiest way to transfer her, but it wasn't without some discomfort.  Thankfully she was able to get some additional Morphine during the process.  She had also had her Ativan prior to going down there.  All in all, the entire experience {transfers and scan itself} did not appear to be too painful for her.

The process of scanning her took around an hour.  She was scanned from head to toe.  What they were looking for was to see where the gallium from the injection on Monday had concentrated.  It settles around areas of infection, abscesses, fractures, and so on.  They were hoping for at least an 80% chance of getting a clear picture of what's going on with Peyton's leg.

Later in the day, we heard that they did in fact find a couple large areas of infection.  Peyton's right thigh was quite lit up on the scan, meaning that there is a lot of activity going on there.  We were told that there is infection in the tissue.  There was also a second area of infection.  Bones are encased in a membrane called the periosteum.  One thing that we have known is that she has a very large sub-periosteal hematoma - a collection of blood / bruising between this layer and the bone.  We were told that this area was also an area of infection.  These two areas obscured the bone so much {how they lit up in the imaging} that they could not tell if the bone itself contained an infection.  Since there is an infection in the sub-periosteal area, the likelihood of there not being a bone infection would be slim.  This is what we were told.

Later on, the Infectious Disease team came in.  We heard an updated version of the story.  I am not sure how many doctors have weighed in on the imaging from the gallium scan - or what their specialties are - but there is some dispute among them now as to what is going on in her leg.  Is it infection as we were told originally after the scan?  Perhaps not.  There's not a consensus on the issue at the moment, so right now we are kind of back to square one in terms of what we know about what this area of concern with her leg is.  The idea of going down for more scans had been mentioned when we were down in Nuclear Medicine.  That wasn't going to happen after we found out it was an infection.  Now that they aren't sure, Peyton is going to have more imaging done tomorrow.

For now, we just wait and hope that we can get a clearer answer tomorrow.  I know everyone is trying their hardest to figure this out, although it was kind of disheartening find out one thing and then find out it may not be that after all.  It's just one more day.  She's already on the antibiotics she would be on if it is an infection after all, so it's not like she's not getting appropriate treatment.

In other news...

It has been days since Peyton has smiled.  She has earned the nickname "Grumpy Cat" on the floor.  Don't know Grumpy Cat??  Here's a picture of Peyton channeling her inner Grumpy Cat:

Peyton received some more beautiful flowers yesterday!

I'll keep you posted on how the next round of imaging goes.  Hopefully we'll have some answers tomorrow.