Heading Home!

It is official...Peyton is being discharged from the hospital today.  We are just now waiting on the paperwork to be processed so we can get out of here!

Peyton is sounding much better.  Not 100%, but definitely better.  We're coordinating our arrival home with her nurse manager from the nursing agency so she can assess her prior to the nurse starting her shift today.  I am hoping we'll be out of here by noon.  Wouldn't that be nice?!

Thanks for all the prayers and support.  I'll keep you updated on her progress.

Greetings From MUSC!

Peyton's still here in the hospital.  She is improving though.  The doctors rounded already this morning and they think she is sounding a bit better, but needs some more time on the IV antibiotics that she is getting (there are 2 different ones).  She is having an awful lot of really thick secretions, so they are going to talk to the pulmonary doctor about decreasing one of her meds for now.  It helps manage the secretions, but it also thickens them.  If they can decrease temporarily, then maybe what she's coughing up will be easier for her to manage.  They are also going to talk to the doctor in infectious diseases about switching over to an "oral" antibiotic (to be given through her g-tube of course).  If all goes ok today, they would probably switch her over tonight.  She is a bit anemic, so they are increasing her normal daily dose of iron.

Please keep praying for Peyton.  If all goes well there is a possibility they could start talking about her going home tomorrow.  

Thanks!

Still at MUSC

The fun continues at the hospital.  Peyton's doing alright.  No fevers, which is good.  However, she continues to sound really junky.  This morning she had tons of really thick dark yellow secretions that she was coughing up.  Coughing up is a good thing though.  The respiratory therapist was in shortly after that and she sounded much better after all her treatments.

The doctor was in this morning and it seems like they are talking about this being pulmonary edema.  They are going to cut back on her IV fluids and free water.  Hopefully they won't have to give her any special meds for the edema.  She is still on a couple different IV antibiotics as they are treating as if there is a pneumonia.

So far we are doing ok in our tiny little space here.  Keep up the prayers that Peyton improves soon!  Thanks.

We're Back...

....in the hospital.   :(

Peyton woke up this morning and her oxygen saturation was low, so I wound up keeping her on oxygen throughout the morning.  I actually had to increase it to more than twice what she normally gets when she's sleeping.  In addition, her heart rate was a little higher than normal.  By the time the home nurse came at noon, her heart rate was over 160 and she was still on oxygen, although I'd been able to lower it a bit.  She also had a temp of 101.4.  She called the Infectious Disease doctor and he recommended that we bring her to the ER...so we did.

We got into an ER room quickly and the doctor was in very shortly thereafter.  Within minutes, we knew she was being admitted.  Same old respiratory issues as before, it would seem.

I just saw the doctor and he said she's looking better than what was described.  I would agree.  I don't know if it's the heavy duty antibiotics she is on, prayer, someone watching over her, or what it is, but she's quite improved.  We'll see how the night goes and how her chest x-ray looks tomorrow.  I'm not sure how long she'll be in the hospital, but they are well aware of her history and are keeping a watchful eye on her!

Will report back tomorrow on how she's doing!

Update From 7A

Peyton had an "ok" night.  Her oxygen was low this morning and it took a bit to get it back to where it should be.  She's really junky sounding.  More so than last night.  The doctor last night thought she seemed to be improving from how she was down in the ER.  This morning, I'd say she sounds worse than in the ER, but without the fever.  They're running all kinds of cultures, as usual and she's back on precautions because of the respiratory infection part of things.  Doctors/nurses have to gown up before coming in.

I'm just hanging out here, spending time with Peyton, catching up on my blog and bloggy friends, reading some scripture, etc.

There IS news to report...over here:

http://fontenblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/what-day-amazing-god.html

It has to do with Peyton and it's some news you'll want to hear!!!  :)

Will update later on.  As always, we appreciate the prayers for Peyton!

Hello...It's Been A Long Time!

It has been a while since I posted!!  If you assumed that all was going reasonably well in our world, you'd be right.  Peyton's been holding her own for the past little bit.  Still really junky at times.  Still requiring lots of suction.  Occasionally getting a little sick, but never amounting to much.

Yesterday she had a follow up with the Infectious Disease doctor.  For the past couple weeks, she's had these off again on again low grade fevers...mostly on again for the past 5 days or so.  Her heart rate has been higher than normal as well.  Suction needs have been increasing.  He agreed that something was going on, but was hesitant to start her on anything unless we knew for sure that we had something really going on.  The last thing we want is for her to become immune to antibiotics.  He said that if her temps rose above 100.4 to give him a call.  So far, the highest has been only around 99.6.

What a difference less than a day makes.  Peyton woke up at about 4:30 coughing and gagging and definitely needing suctioned.  She was also throwing up a little.  She continued to cough.  It was like something was stuck but it wasn't coming up.   Poor little girl.  It just wasn't clearing so she continued to cough intermittently.  She finally settled around 5:00 but continued to cough a little here and there.  Then it was back to the throwing up a little again around 7:30 or so.  She felt pretty hot, so when I changed her diaper I checked her temp.  101.3!!  In addition, her oxygen was only at about 93% while ON oxygen.  That has improved a little.  Her heart rate, though, has been ranging between high 150s to low 170s!!  It should be in the very low 100s.  108ish, like.

Just after 8:00, I got on the phone to call the doctor.  He actually answered himself and I spoke directly with him right then!  He is concerned about aspiration pneumonia (or the risk of, at the very least).  He wants to start her back on some antibiotics today.  He said we should see a difference after about 48 hours.  If not, I'm to call back.

So, while we've had a pretty decent run of it, we're putting Peyton back on antibiotics.  We appreciate your prayers that she responds well and we see much improvement in the next 48 hours.