Not sure...

Somewhere in this mess of wires, pumps, tubes, and blankets is a little girl...it's like a "Where's Wlado" picture.  We are still not sure what is causing Lucy to feel so sick.  It was decided during rounds yesterday that we would ramp up our antibiotic coverage and add IV antifungals to cover all of our basis.  Cultures continue to be negative, with the exception of her urine culture.   Her bladder is colonized with a specific bacteria that has taken up residence inside of Lucy's bladder since the beginning of the year.  Apparently it likes it in there and is coexisting peacefully, in other words it is not causing her to have infections.  We know this because Lucy's urine analysis is pristine, it is showing no evidence of infection.  Our wonderful urology team came upstairs to explain all of this to the new, as in just out of med school and are treating patients for the first time since receiving their diplomas, residents who are assigned to Lucy's team.  Since adding in all of the extras, Lucy's temps have come down, which has us all scratching our heads.  It's quite possible that we are dealing with a very hard to find bacteria or fungus.  Oh Lucy, nothing is ever simple with you, but we love you very much nonetheless.

Blood work is holding stable which we'll take as a positive.  Her albumin is low and has been for days,  I am hoping for an albumin infusion today.  Infusing her with albumin will help with the fluid retention, Lucy is puffy all over especially her hands, feet and face.  When Luc is awake she will engage in conversations but is very out of it looking.  We were able to change her central line dressing site with little fuss last night, so NOT like her.

Lucy's central line is in need of getting replaced, it is compromised in multiple locations making it difficult to infuse through it.  Lucy's central line is her life line, it needs to function.  Before she got sick, the plan was to head to the OR sometime in the next week or so to pull and place a new line all at the same time and if possible in the same location.  Now that she is febrile, we have to wait until she is fever free for 48 hours to even consider doing this.  Just to add to the drama, our surgeon will be on vacation next week.  So, Lucy girl, if you could just break your fevers today that would mean that we could get a new line placed with Dr. K at the end of the week and possibly go home...is that too much for a mama to ask?

Thanks as always for your thoughts and prayers.  It takes a village and we are so blessed to have such a large, thoughtful, loving and caring village.