Day 4 in the Hospital

It's been a busyday here today because they moved Ruhlande to the main pediatrics floor (so, I did a lot of talking to the nurse in PICU about her care before she left). Then, shortly after we got to the new room, I had to go home for a bit to pick up my kiddos and bring them back to the hospital (luckily, I had a friend who was able to stay with Ruthlande while I left). At any rate, Ruthlande was awake pretty much all day, but she was acting like she was in a bit more pain and she was a bit shaky, I think from the fever, which has not gone away. They've been giving her Tylenol every four hours for the fever, and they gave her some morphine this evening for the pain. I was getting concerned about her today and then talked to the doctor and found out why she isn't looking as good as I would hope.

Unfortunately, it looks like Ruthlande does have meningitis. The infectious diseases doctor came to talk to me just before Ruthlande changed rooms. She said that the culture from the swab they did of Ruthlande's leaking fluid showed Acinetobacter bacteria. Because these results were received from the swab and not from a normal spinal fluid test, they cannot be 100% positive that it is meningitis, but the doctor said that they are presuming it is. There are two reasons for this - First, if there was bacteria on the fluid that was leaking from her sac, it only makes sense that that bacteria would have gotten into the fluid that went back up into her spine. Second, she has had a fever for several days and has no other known infections.

So, they are putting Ruthlande on a new, stronger antibiotic. She will need to be on the antibiotic for 3 weeks. If she is able tocome home with us before that three weeks are up, then they will put in a picc line.

The good news is that Ruthlande is eating and drinking a bit more today. We're still working on getting her to eat and drink even more, but I'm happy to see progress there.

As far as the hydrocephalus goes, there's nothing new to report. Dr. Ruge came by this morning and pretty much echoed the same things he'd been saying all along. He said we'll have to watch for vomiting in the coming weeks.