Another Bump in the Road

We had a rough night.  Abbey's fever was consistently high and got up to 104.9.  They were giving her tylenol every 4 hours and that would bring it down a little, but not much.  It stayed over 102 I think the whole night.  She was the sickest we've seen her yesterday. She would only open her eyes to go potty and then for those couple minutes being out of bed, she would cry and ask to be put back in bed so she could lay down. Amazingly, this morning around 9:00a.m. her fever broke for the first time.  It was a huge answer to prayer so for the progress in this area we are thankful.  Since then her fever has come back up a little, but not as high as it was last night.  She is now around 100 so we are praying for it to come back down to normal soon and stay there.  

Last night she had her CT scan around 9:30.  They explained to us that she would have to be very still during the scan and that if she has a hard time being still they would have to sedate her today for the procedure so they could get good pictures.  The scan went great.  She was calm and still and they got great pictures.  The radiologist was gone for the night, but we were assured that we would know first thing this morning what the scan showed.  The resident came in last night and said that she took a look and that she didn't see anything alarming, but that the radiologist would give us a final opinion on what he saw in the morning.

First thing this morning the doctor came in and said that they did indeed see something on the scan.  They are thinking it's a blood clot in her head.  She is scheduled for an MRI at 4p.m. today and they will be able to know for sure what's going on.  She will be sedated for this procedure since it takes longer and can be scary for little kids.  We are nervous about the blood clot, but also thankful that they found it now if that is what it is.  They assured us that if it is a clot, there is treatment to make sure it doesn't get bigger and they said that over time her body will dissolve it.  We feel like they are confident that it is a clot so now we are trying to just stay strong until we know for sure.  We are so happy that we are here in the hospital though and not at home.  If we hadn't gotten admitted yesterday they would have no idea about this new finding in her head.

At the 24 hour check her blood culture was negative, but they will continue to watch it closely and will again see if it's showing anything at 48 hours.  Of course this is great news as of now with the bacterial infection, but we aren't completely out of the woods on this yet.  Her fevers got so high last night that it was alarming.  Yesterday they also did a nose swab to test for RSV and other viral things and it came back clear so that was kind of frustrating.  If it is a virus then there would be something to blame the fevers on so at this point we still don't know why she is having them.  They did tell us that there are many viruses though that cannot be tested for so she may have one of those.   

She did wake up this morning with diarrhea, which yes stinks, but that seems like a virus type thing so in a way it's a relief that she is having some other symptoms other than just fever to point to a virus.  Her bottom is very sore from going potty and she is bleeding there each time I clean her up.  She's having a lot of pain each time.  She also has been having belly pain (cramping and gassy) which again would go along with a viral thing.  She is more awake today and although still feeling yucky we've seen some glimpses of Abbey.  She has watched some cartoons and we've read some books.  So overall we have had some progress in some areas, but now we have this whole new issue with the blood clot which is concerning.

Thank you for the outpouring of love that you all have showed us these last couple of days.  In the midst of this scary time, we have felt loved and know that both Abbey and our family is being prayed for continually by many people.