Positive and Negative

This morning we have both. It gets so confusing, I know, but we have a positive culture of both gram negatives and gram positive rods on yesterdays line culture and then we have a negative or no growth on the peripheral culture drawn yesterday. So what do we want to have? All negatives. Allie just doesn't get this. She said positives should be good because the word stands for good things. You know like being "positive". Thats what she thinks, but in this case negatives mean good things for us and positives mean bad.

Anyway, its a huge blessing that yesterday's peripheral culture was negative because that affords Ashley Kate a day off from being dug around in by needles searching for veins that are willing to give up some more blood. That has me smiling for my sweet girl today. Now I just need it to remain negative for 72 hours.

As soon as we get both cultures to be negative or show no growth then we may be able to bring her home and continue treatment here. This is what we are hoping for. We really need to get her away from all the germs and viruses in the halls. Its so dangerous for her to be in the hospital during this time.

This morning they are doing an ECHO to try and see if they can find any vegetation on the tip of the catheter in her sub clavian. Their particularly looking for a glob or a clot of something that could be infected with this bacteria. We still don't know what bacteria it is.

She remains fever free. Had a really bad episode of vomiting around 4 this morning and is having really high stool outputs requiring us to need this line for IV replacements. If we do find a clot on the line then we will need to be transferred over to Shreveport so her surgeons can remove it and place a new one. That would require a time in the OR early this week and an IV to be placed for access during the procedure. I would really love to avoid all of this for her.

My hope is that the antibiotics will somehow clear this infection from her blood stream and her central line and that in just a few short weeks she get control of her stooling so that we can be line free for a while. This would be the best scenario for her. The best outcome from all of this.

Anyway, I'm going to watch Allie play in her game this morning then we will switch places and Dave and Blake are going to do some work in the cages. Once they've finished Blake's work out then they are going to tackle the lawn. We finally got a lawn mower and they will be putting it to good use this afternoon while I sit with Ashley Kate. Hope your weekends are blessed. Ours sure has changed from what we thought would take place earlier in the week. Making the best of it anyway and so excited to go watch Al play. Enjoy your families. Trish