Day 6

As of this morning, it didn’t look like they were going to be able to test Ruthlande’s spinal fluid. They’re planning on keeping her on the broad spectrum antibiotics. I’m not too happy about this, since she’s been on the broad spectrum antibiotics since Haiti and her fevers haven’t gone away yet. The first doctor who I talked to had said that these antibiotics aren’t strong enough to treat meningitis. But, I guess there’s not much else they can do at this point if they can’t test her spinal fluid. When Ruthlande’s fever is down, she is awake and even playing with toys, but when it goes back up, you can definitely tell in the way she acts. Please keep praying that they can find a way to identify what type of infection she has so that they can properly treat it.

We spoke to the doctors again, though, and it turns out there is still a chance that they might be able to do the spinal tap at Ruthlande's neck. Apparently, in cases of spina bifida, the brain can sometimes move to a lower than normal position, which is what makes doing this type of tap dangerous. However, this afternoon, they gave Ruthlande an MRI to find out if it is safe or not to do it. Please be praying that they can do the tap and find out what the infection is!