Did I Say She Was Home Again

Remember that last post I wrote where I said Peyton was home again?  Well...she's at her home away from home...again.  Yes, she is in the hospital.  Again.

This morning {Sunday} when Peyton woke up, I looked at her pulse ox monitor to see that her heart rate was running around 161-162.  I immediately felt her, as increased heart rate can come along with fever.  She felt hot, so I took her temperature.  It was 100.0.  Not horrible, but she normally runs low, so for her, that's probably more like 102.0.  She was also extremely irritable with her hip pain.  I gave her some Tylenol and Oxycodone.  I was thinking that we might be heading to the ER again, but when the nurse arrived at 8am, we decided that we could hold off on that.

Ron, Moira and I went to church as planned.  When we came home, she seemed "ok".  At least ok enough to feel comfortable with the decision to wait it out and not rush to the ER.  Within an hour or so, the nurse asked me to come and take a look at Peyton.  Out of nowhere, her left arm had become quite swollen as had her right leg.  In fact, I measured her calves and her right measured two and a half inches bigger around than her left.  Her good leg only measures 6.5" around, so a 2.5" difference is significant!

Our home nurse wound up calling up to the unit where Peyton had been discharged from and she eventually spoke with the resident who had seen Peyton in the hospital.  I ultimately decided that I was not comfortable with what I was seeing at all and we took her to the ER.

Long story short, she had a venous ultrasound and she does not have DVT {deep vein thrombosis, or, blood clot} in her leg.  Her blood work does not indicate any sort of renal failure.  In fact, there's just plain no answer...again.  The doctors essentially left it up to me as to what to do - stay or go home.  Well, I was definitely not comfortable with going home.  Her leg and arm are swollen.  What am I supposed to do with that??  What if it gets worse as suddenly as it appeared??  In fact, as we waited in the ER, her leg began to feel warmer and warmer.  The concern is that maybe it is cellulitis.  I decided that I would rather she stay for observation.  The alternative would be to go home, the nurse's shift would end at 8pm, and then I would either a) have to stay awake 12 hours til the next nurse would arrive at 8am Monday morning or b) fall asleep {I sleep in her room} and risk missing anything that might happen overnight.  At least in the hospital there would be people to monitor her through the night.

So, here we are...again.  And I am pleading for prayers for her...again.

I will keep you posted on any new developments.