Still in the hospital

Well Grace is still at CHOP. She has a confirmed viral pneumonia with a possible secondary bacterial infection. (Boy, I have been spending way too much time around medical professionals.) They started giving her some high-powered antibiotics while we await the results from the blood cultures. This will take a few days so rather than waiting to treat, they are asuming that she has the bacterial infection and treating it.

Grace has been on oxygen since Friday night. She has been having a lot of trouble keeping her blood pressure up and keeping her heart rate down. As a result, she was moved to the PICU unit Saturday night. She is being given Dopamine to help with the blood pressure. This required a higher level on monitoring than what was available on the regular wards. Prior to starting this medicine, they gave Grace lots of fluids - apparently a bit too much for her veins and her veins started to leak out some of the fluid into surrounding tissue.

The doctors decided that Grace needed a central line so she had one inserted today into her leg. This gives direct access to her arteries and gives her veins a small break. They gave her some medicine to sedate her for running the central line and also something to help her forget and block out the event. - I didn't know that was even possible. I always thought that was something just for James Bond.

As a result of everything they did for Grace, things seem to have stabalized for her. Her blood pressure is just a hare short of normal and her heart rate has fully come into the normal range. Her oxygen concentration is holding steady at 100%. This is all great news. Grace is not doing this on her own but with a lot of help from medicines and oxygen. However, we are all thrilled to see things stabalize - regardless of who or what is doing it right now! Grace will likely be here for a few days while they work to getting Grace to maintain this stabilization on her own.

Grace was very out of it on Saturday. The combination of high fever and low oxygen levels seemed to just wipe her out. As she has gained stability, she is able to concentrate more when she is awake. She has started to fight back when they try to do things to her - which everyone is happy to see. I hope they are still happy to see that when she is allowed to eat - that is usually a huge fight!

The most amazing this is that on Friday night when Tom and I were trying to decide what to do, Tom asked Grace it she wanted to go to the hospital. She actually said yes. We new at that point that she was really sick and knew it herself! We keep telling the doctors that Grace participated in this treatment decision!

Thank you to everyone who has been praying for Grace. I believe in the power of prayer so please know that it is greatly appreciated!

Marie