Sophie's World

10:32 AM Doctor Gold sure is a wily fellow. This morning the news is that Sophie's blood culture from yesterday came back positive, meaning the antibiotics are not knocking out the infection (that's not exactly bad news though--read on). His plan now is to remove Sophie's central line (as early as tomorrow morning) and replace it with what is called a PICC line (which, apparently, according to a Google search, stands for "peripherally inserted central catheters"). The PICC line would give the doctors access to Sophie's blood stream, but would be less prone to infection. The good news about this possibility is that Sophie could go home as soon as tomorrow, with a schedule of IV antibiotics that we administer at home. Of course, we had expected to not do line maintenance (which we will still have to do with the PICC line), but we won't have to worry about Sophie getting "stuck" so much. Apparently, a disadvantage of peripheral IVs (in the hand) is that they tend to not last very long, meaning Sophie would need to get stuck many times over the next couple of weeks, moving her IV around, so that she can get all the antibiotics she would need. That does not sound optimal (and it would mean staying in the hospital for that whole time). Of course, Doctor Gold finished this discussion with a caveat--"I'm not promising anything." We'll see what happens. We're getting pretty good at holding on, although it does get old after a while.