5/28/09 - Brinley Update

I will give a detailed update, if you are not so much into the details you can skip over most of this, we have families out of state who want to hear the long version....

Brinley's culture grew bacteria, which means she has some kind of bacterial infection, the kind we don't want with an ANC at 100 (it dropped).  She is very sick.  There are two kinds of bacteria they look for, gram positive and gram negative.  They are pretty sure Brinley's is gram positive.  I have had a confusing day, this is all new to me and sometimes I just need someone to explain things to me in human terms, so a friend who has been there, done that, with her son took on the task of informing me.  Here's what I got, hopefully I've gotten it straight.  Gram positive is the "bad bacteria," it grows very rapidly, which is probably why it grew so quickly in her culture.  That could mean a line infection in her central line.  I also think it may mean a staph infection, with her toe having an open wound.  That is just me adding my own stuff...but one of the oncs did say that although her toe is not infected it may have been used as a door for bacteria to enter her body.  Hopefully tomorrow we will know exactly what we are dealing with.  The resident doctor said if she continues to be this sick tonight (I am home now, so I don't know if he's been back yet to look at her) they will get out the momma antibiotic (the name escapes me, so I named it myself :)).  Why DO they have such difficult names....but this one is really only for more serious infections that will not go away with the other antibiotics (which I originally thought WERE the strongest out there...who knew they were hiding the momma antibiotic from me...).  They don't like to give it because it can cause some side effects that are not so pleasant, like diarrhea and a few others.  Hopefully she will start improving tonight.  They currently have her on 3 different antibiotics to try to attack from every angle, since they don't know what they are dealing with yet.  The resident said "best case" scenario we will be there until Saturday morning, but she must be fever free for 24 hours (she is still running a fever) or her ANC gone up out of the danger zone.  And the culture has to come out clean.  Without the white blood cells to attack this bacteria, Brinley is in a war with no defenses.  She has no way to fight it.  Up to this point we have managed to avoid bacterial infections, this is the reason they drill it into our heads to get her to the ER if she has a fever.  They can be life-threatening.  

I look at her sick face and wonder what is going on inside that little body that is under attack.  The onc told me this morning that these type of infections can come on so fast and be critical within an hour.  That is scary.  The good news:  we have weapons to put into her body.  Thank you antibiotics!!  They saved Mylee's life when she was born, now hopefully they will work their magic and save Brinley's too.  Thank you, thank you, thank you medical world!!!

Prayer requests:  

That the antibiotics will do their job and kill the bacteria that Brinley's body can't. 

That David and I will have the understanding of the medical aspect of all this to make good decisions for Brinley.

That the doctors will have the wisdom to do what will get Brinley healthy again.