Causing Problems

This whole CMV thing is a pain. It is the root of all that is happening with Ash yesterday and today(they think). It has caused an ilius in the bowel(no peristalsis or movement of any fluids) and her CT scan shows multiple, large dilated loops of her bowel. All of this is trouble. Her bowel is in a very fragile state. It is weak. It is damaged. It is sick. This this is causing her great pain and cramping and nothing can be given to help.

We are pulling fluid out of her bowel in reverse fashion. Since the bowel will not move the fluid out through the ostomy on its own we have hooked her G-tube up to suction and we are pulling the fluid(mostly bile like) out through her stomach. Kind of gross, huh? Our hope is to help her decompress the bowel and make her more comfortable by not allowing the bowel to keep filling up without a way to rid the fluid. The bowel is sick from the virus so it is causing her to stool out except that none of it is coming out. To leave it would allow the bacteria to just sit inside of her bowel and then we are looking at potential disaster.

Because of the massive amounts of fluid we are getting pulled out of her bowel through her tummy she is quickly slipping over into the dehydration dangers. We are working on figuring out a safe rate to infuse the fluid losses back into her system without overloading her and placing her in respiratory distress.

Currently we are still on the general pediatrics floor and we are doing everything we can to keep her safely here. As long as her lungs don't fill with the fluids then we should be safe.

It has been one of the longest days ever. She hurts so much and it breaks all of our hearts. We have an excellent nursing staff today and an excellent resident who is taking lots of time figuring out how to keep her as safe as possible. If there is a blessing in today's events I think I would have to say it is the people working on her. They have been amazing.

We still have had no sleep. We are both starving and really thirsty. I think I can fix the thirsty part relatively quickly, but the other two are going to have to be put off for a little while longer.

We're going to be ok. If she can manage to keep breathing and not lose this bowel as we fight this CMV thing then we're going to be ok.

Thank you for your prayers today. They are literally keeping me going. I can't thank you enough. Trish