The latest lab results back up what we’ve been suspecting for the past few days…Adela is feeling better.\u00a0 With the last batch of tests, we found that her nutrition is improving and inflammation is going down.<\/p>\n
Two of the key things they look at for her nutrition are her albumin and transthyretin (prealbumin) levels.\u00a0 One of the ways to look at this is in that albumin is a measure of nutrition over the past two to three weeks while transthyretin is more a measure of nutrition over the past two to four days.\u00a0 Normal albumin levels are 3.5 to 5 g\/dL — she’s at 2.8 g\/dL, so still a bit lower than normal.\u00a0 Normal transthyretin levels are 16 to 30 mg\/dL — she’s at 30 mg\/dL, right on target.\u00a0 When she was admitted, her albumin levels were less than 2 and transthyretin was virtually undetectable.<\/p>\n
As for the inflammation, the steroids seem to be making progress in reducing the intestinal inflammation.\u00a0 Not much to say on that front.\u00a0 The only downside is that the steroids seem to give Adela night sweats and mood swings.\u00a0 Yippee…mood swings in a hospitalized anxious toddler who’s paranoid of doctors.\u00a0 What more could you want…<\/p>\n
She’s been pulled off the two remaining antibiotics since her condition is improving to the point they think the cost\/benefit tradeoff is such that she’s be OK without them.\u00a0 We’re still on the antifungal, although at a lower dose, just because they need to step her down off of it.\u00a0 An added benefit is that this means no more being woken up at times when most sane people are fast asleep by the loud IV pumps beeping to tell us that it’s done infusing the medicine.\u00a0 Now it’s just waking up at 12:00 midnight and 4:00 am to get her vital signs (heart rate, respiration rate, blood pressure, and temperature).<\/p>\n
Last week she had a “metabolic cart study” test.\u00a0 I don’t know what the real name of the test is, but basically it measures the amount of oxygen you inhale versus the amount of carbon dioxide you exhale to calculate how quickly you burn fat.\u00a0 Rather ingenious way of doing it.\u00a0 It involved Adela wearing a mask for fifteen minutes that was hooked up to a cart they wheeled into the room with all the equipment on it.\u00a0 She really surprised us and kept the mask on the whole fifteen minutes despite being anxious about it.\u00a0 It was to try to figure out if the amount of fats they were giving her was too much or too little — the target was to give her the maximum amount that her body could process, but not too much.\u00a0 The results came back today and it looks like they’re right on target with giving her the right amount.\u00a0 However, that said, she’s getting a bit of a belly on her right now from all the feedings…they said not to worry about that right now.<\/p>\n
She’s been out and about in her red wagon more and is walking more with less help than before.\u00a0 We’re still a little weaker than usual, but we’re improving.<\/p>\n
And today we had to say goodbye to “Dr. Blueberry” (yes, we’ve changed his name for his own protection \ud83d\ude42 ).\u00a0 He was one of Adela’s doctors since we arrived and he’s rotating off to go on ER duty.\u00a0 I know Adela will miss him — despite her constantly asking “Why is he here?” and “Can he go now?” every time he came into the room.\u00a0 He provided us with medical care while we provided him with plenty of ham humor.\u00a0 Hopefully he won’t be able to eat ham for a while without thinking of Adela.\u00a0 Thanks “Dr. Blueberry”.<\/p>\n
Now on to the fun\/interesting news.\u00a0 UNC Hospitals is pitching a news story to the local news outlets about how parents of children who can’t get the flu vaccine should get the vaccine themselves.\u00a0 The idea is that if you reduce the risk that the parents will bring home the flu, it can reduce the risk that the child will get the flu (at least from the parents).\u00a0 Well, guess what family fits their profile…yes, it’s us.\u00a0 Adela can’t have the flu vaccine partially because they don’t want to throw anything else into the mix while she’s sick but also because the flu vaccine is cultured in chicken eggs…which Adela is allergic to.\u00a0 Now, to be fair, some studies say it doesn’t really make a difference whether you’re allergic to eggs or not while some studies say you really shouldn’t risk it.\u00a0 Guess which camp we’re in.\u00a0 Anyway, vaccination\/allergy lesson aside, we’re going to be on TV.\u00a0 Turns out that WRAL (one of the local news stations) will be coming on Wednesday afternoon to get some footage and some interview clips for the local news.\u00a0 The News and Observer (a local newspaper) and a local radio station may join in too.\u00a0 So, Daddy, Mommy, and Nana will get the flu vaccine on camera while Adela watches all the excitement.\u00a0 I’m trying to get Adela to say, “I can’t have the flu vaccine because it’s made from eggs.” for the interview.\u00a0 It’s cute, however, because when she says it, it sounds like we’re getting the “foo” vaccine.\u00a0 I figure it shouldn’t be too hard since she’s started repeating the doctors’ orders — things like “we need to reduce the fat in her TPN” she’ll repeat verbatim.\u00a0 We’ll of course post links to the stories after they’ve aired or gone to print.\u00a0 We don’t know when they’ll actually run…we figure it will probably be at least a day or two after the interviews.\u00a0 Mommy wanted the title of the post to be “no egg foo mung for me”, but since Daddy’s the one posting, I got to overrule the pun (only because I couldn’t think of a better one myself).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The latest lab results back up what we’ve been suspecting for the past few days…Adela is feeling better.\u00a0 With the last batch of tests, we found that her nutrition is improving and inflammation is going down. Two of the key things they look at for her nutrition are her albumin and transthyretin (prealbumin) levels.\u00a0 One […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pviUd-7Q","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raisingladybug.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raisingladybug.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raisingladybug.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raisingladybug.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raisingladybug.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=486"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.raisingladybug.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":487,"href":"http:\/\/www.raisingladybug.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486\/revisions\/487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raisingladybug.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raisingladybug.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raisingladybug.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}