Pretty good...considering

She's doing quite well and feeling pretty good considering she has an infected central line and bacteria flowing throughout her blood stream. I'm totally surprised at how fast she's turned around. Surprised at how fast she got sick...and then turned it around.

Night before last I spent 8 very frightening hours with Ash watching the all too common changes in her status that come with each recurring line infection. It never fails to cause my heart to race along with hers as I watch her body deal with the flush of bacteria through her veins. She was scared, trembling, not oxygenating well, and turning blue around her lips. Her heart rate had increased from the mid 70's to 155. I new instantly it was a line infection. She remained in that state for the first two hours. Then as the trembling and the fear in her eyes subsided she spiked a fever. Literally in seconds the changes were occurring. Her temperature remained at her normal 97 degrees during the trembling and then jumped to 102. She remained febrile in the ranges of 100 to 102 for the next 6 hours. I sat next to her bed watching her and willing her to be ok. Then the fever disappeared and she giggled. Loudly! She was so happy and so relieved to be feeling better. She spent the morning playing on her Ipad and giggling while I drew blood cultures, called her doctors, the lab, and the pharmacy.

She has remained happy, fever free, and overall pretty good considering.

She looks rough. Her eyes have dark circles around them. Her face is and has been for over a week very, very swollen from her SVC syndrome. Her skin coloring is off as is the coloring of her eyes. Her bilirubin has been climbing for the last month. Her blood chemistries are all out of whack. She doesn't look that good to be honest, but she's feeling better than she should be.

In the grand scheme of her life I'd say she's handling this infection pretty good. Outside of the initial 8 hours that alerted me to the infection she's doing quite well and I'm very grateful.

We still don't know what bug is in her blood or how long this course of treatment will last, but we do have her line working again. Bacteria and all. I'd say that's pretty good...considering.