Sophie's World

6:30 PM: We had a visit from the hospital's infectious disease specialist this afternoon. It was interesting but also a little distressing. He asked a lot of questions about how things had been leading up to our admission. He was especially interested in her rash, but it's pretty much gone, so there was nothing to see. He said that this bacteria is usually water-borne through direct contact. But it's pretty unusual for a kid to be admitted with it (our doctors were struggling even to pronounce it, they were so unfamiliar with it). The sensitivities are back, and the two antibiotics she's on are what the cultured bacteria are most responding to. One of the reasons they called in the infectious disease doctor is to get a recommendation from him as to whether both antibiotics are necessary, or whether we could just use the rocephin. Rocephin is only administered once a day, but the gentamycin is three times a day, so we'd be doing IV antibiotics at home four times a day (but we can certainly handle that). What worried me most about talking with this new doctor today is that he is concerned about the second positive culture and continued fevers, because if the infection is in the line, it's harder to treat. If the culture they took last night turns up positive (which is has not yet), from his perspective, the best strategy would be to remove the line, make sure the infection is completely cleared (indicated by multiple negative blood cultures), do her treatments through a peripheral IV for a short period, and then we can put a new line in if needed. I wasn't quite ready to consider that possibility yet, so I mentioned my concern to Dr. Westin and Dr. Coulter when they came to visit a little later. They both immediately shook their heads and said he always says that. Dr. Westin said not to worry: "We will remove no line before its time." I felt much better after that.

Sophie had a good nap and a fun time in the play room. Dr. Coulter played with her with the dollhouse, and he was being very silly (he has a six-year-old, so he's good at being a silly daddy). Sophie's been off her IV since about 12:30 and will go back on for her antibiotic in just a few minutes. It's been really nice not dragging the pole around all afternoon.

I just got a call from Patti, who said that Elisabeth is having a great time. Elisabeth actually talked to me (she usually won't talk to me when she's visiting someone else). Then Sophie talked to Elisabeth and then Patti talked to Sophie, so it was a regular chat-fest.