Still Here

Ellie went to Radiology yesterday morning to have the fluid/abssesses around her liver aspirated (taken out). They only had to give her gas and put her to sleep. No breathing tube was needed. When they tried to aspirate the fluid they could not get very much. It was very thick and red. Turns out that it's a hematoma (blood clot). She will not need anything to get rid of it, it will be reabsorbed by her body. They did get enough to culture it and so far the culture is negative.
The stool sample they took came up with a negative culture too (yeah) but the culture on her incision site came up positive (she had a little leaking there the other day) for VRE--Vancomycin Resistant Enterococcus. Apparently it is not in her incision site, but on the skin around it. Basically it is a bacteria that is resistant to the antibiotic Vancomycin--which is a strong antibiotic used to treat MRSA staff and other infections. She does not have an active infection, but is carrying the bacteria so we are on isolation precautions (yellow gowns and gloves) for that. She contracted it because she was on several antibiotics, had different IVs in, had a low immune system, etc....her body was open to every chance of getting it. Infectious Disease says her body will eventually start making good bacteria again and it will get rid of the VRE. The funny thing is that we were just starting the labwork to get Ellie out of isolation precautions for MRSA (which she had way back in September)! At least she likes yellow---apparently Sydney and Reagan do not. They both refused the yellow toothbrushes Dave offered them the other day (they wanted the pink and purple ones). So now he says we have 2 new yellow toothbrushes that neither one will use. Guess they are Ellie's when she gets teeth!

They started Ellie's j-tube feeds back up yesterday and she is now at 20 ml of 20 calorie formula. We just got permission to slowly go to 25 ml. Our goal is 30 ml of 24 calorie formula without complications. Dr. Ostlie says she is looking great and, if all goes well, may get to go home on Monday or Tuesday!!