Slow improvement without steroids…just ham

It seems like I’ve been repeating myself with the past few posts…they’ve all been about slow improvement and ham.  Would anyone care to guess what this post will be about?  Again, a day of resting, antibiotics, and ham with some improvement.

Adela is still on her antibiotics (although she’ll be coming off at least one of them tomorrow).  Her blood pressure has been running a bit high.  We know some of that is just the anxiety she feels when the nurses come into the room to check it.  So, we’ve started checking her vital signs.  She still gets upset, however we’re usually able to get a little bit better results (with a little bit less whining and whimpering).  There’s still something other than the anxiety that’s causing a rise in her blood pressure and the doctors’ money is on some of the antibiotics.  But, as we’re finding, everything is a tradeoff.  Do you treat an unproven infection and try to keep out new ones or do you worry about blood pressure?

One of the good things that has happened because of the antibiotics was the delay in giving steroids (which come with their own downsides like high blood pressure and a lowered immune system).  Because her nutritional picture is getting a bit better every day on its own, the doctors decided to see if she could essentially recover just from the IV nutrition (TPN) and Elecare.  The GI doctor’s logic is that since her albumin and pre-albumin/transferrin levels (a measure of protiens/nutrition) are rising just from the nutritional therapy (TPN, Elecare, and ham), the improved nutrition is helping the intestines heal, so we don’t need steroids right now.

She’s been sitting up in bed quite a bit more.  Also, she was up and walking around with Mommy’s help for a few minutes today.  We know it’s important that her legs don’t get too weak from sitting in bed for two weeks.

The doctors said being up and moving around should also help with a persistent cough that has been with us for the past four days.  At first we thought it could be the start of an infection, but considering she’s on every antibiotic known to man (OK, an overstatement), it’s unlikely she’s developing an infection.  It could be that they had been pumping twenty gallons of fluid/blood/plasma in each day (OK, another overstatement), however they reduced her fluids and gave her a medicine to fix that (let’s just say we had several bedding changes that night).  Or, it could just be that the air in the hospital room is dry and she hasn’t been drinking very much.  Take your pick — your guess is as good as ours.  She had an X-ray last night at about 9:30 PM to check for any fluid in her lungs, however the doctors didn’t see any.

The plan for the next few days is the same as it has been all week.  Continued IV nutrition, slow increases in her Elecare formula through her G-tube, and watching her lab values.