The Saga Continues

Hello everyone! Just wanted to post another update on the past few eventful days in Lovelace-land and once again ask for your prayers. The day we brought Emma home from surgery, she was groggy and tired off and on, just as they said she would be. We let her eat whatever she wanted to and watched some cartoons with her before putting her to bed for the night. Wednesday - Emma wakes up VERY congested with a draining nose. She's in a terrible mood all day long and has a temperature ranging form 100-102 off and on. We think two things: a) they said a fever for a few days after anesthesia is normal, and b) she's had a cold coming on for weeks now. Surgery must have brought it out. Not a big deal. She's miserable most of the day. That night, a follow-up nurse from the hospital calls to see how Emmma's doing. We tell her and she hears that Emma's temperature has been as high as 102, she says, "101.5 is about as high as we're comfortable with post-surgery. You might want to give the on-call surgon a call, just to be safe." We do. She says, in a nutshell, "It's probably her virus. Your options are to bring her to the ER or to watch and see how she feels tomorrow." (Thanksgiving) We decide to wait and see. Thursday morning comes around, Emma wakes up with a normal temp, but it begins to climb as the day continues. Finally, around 11AM, I convince my husband (who is at this point highly annoyed with his paranoid wife) to agree to the ER, just for my own peace of mind. I wanted to enjoy our Thanksgiving dinner in peace. We take Emma to the ER Thursday morning and it was essentially unhelpful. A surgical resident examines her and essentially says that it seems OK to him, but since the incision still has the bandage on it from surgery, he couldn't tell for sure. He advises us to call the surgery clinic for an appointment on Monday morning. We head home. At this point, it's 2PM and Chris is miserably sick (has been for over 24 hours) and Emma is exhausted. We opt out of Thanksgiving dinner with Chris' co-workers and decide to let Emma nap as long as she'd like. We spent the rest of Thanksgiving in our PJs on the couch while I continue to worry feel like something is not quite right. Not the most memorable holiday ever. Friday rolls around and Emma's fever is still in the mid-101s. We also notice that her wound is slowly oozing, leaving small stains on her onesies. The day continues and although she seems much happier than she has for the past few days, the fever-that-just-won't-quit is still concerning me. Later that afternoon, I beg Chris to call the on-call surgeon again. Maybe they could at least put Emma on some antibiotics just in case an infection really IS brewing. He does and rolls his eyes 80% of the time he's on the phone. When he gets off and I look at him with question marks in my eyes, Chris tells me the surgeon wants us to return to the ER so they can admit Emma to the hospital overnight. "What!?" you might be thinking. That's what I thought too. But apparently the surgeon says that if we're worried enough to have taken her to the ER already and called multiple times, it might be worth taking a closer look. "What about the antibiotics?" I ask. Chris says, "He doesn't feel comfortable with that." So all of the wind comes out of our sails as we pack for yet another hospital stay. Our hope was that they would admit Emma, look at her wound, tell us she was fine and we could go home. No such luck. We are admitted to the ER and instantly put into a room. Another surgical resident looks at Emma's incision (which is still covered by the bandage) and says, "It looks just a HINT redder than "stone-cold normal" to me. Let's admit her and get an IV going. Again, Chris and I say, "WHAT?! Is this really necessary?" Yes, she says. "The kind of antibiotic we want to give her can only be given via IV." Our poor sweet girl. She endures this procedure yet-again with grace and less tears than we were expecting, but Chris and I are weary of the whole hospital scene. We are checked into a room and since only 1 parent is allowed to stay overnight, Chris leaves around midnight wihle I do my best to get Emma to sleep in this new crazy not-my-home-or-my-bed environment. Yesterday (Saturday) the same resident came into our room at 7:15 to look at Emma's wound and declared it looked much less red (which it did). Around 10:30, the on-call surgeon whom we had spoken with finally came by. He looked at Emma's skin again as we tried to distract her with toys. He took the bandage off and finally looked at the incision itself. He looks up and says to me, "Well, it's infected." I had to fight the urge not to stand on the chair in Emma's room and say things like, "Ha! I TOLD you so! I'm not just a paranoid mom who's trying to make your life difficult! I KNEW something was wrong!" and things like that. But I didn't. I calmly said, "Well, I wasn't trying to pester you. I just didn't feel right about it and I've learned enough about my parental instincts from Emma's history to know that I should follow them." He said, "You guys did the right thing. Calling multiple times and bringing her in..." Although I was NOT happy to hear that Emma had an infection brewing, I felt vindicated. He put her on a stronger more all-inclusive antibiotic and told us that they would be taking a culture of the ooze to see exactly what kind of bacteria was there in order to better target it with antibiotics. It's now Sunday morning and we are still at the hospital without any more information. Emma was happy all day long, but is not eating or drinking well. Chris let me spend the night at home last night so I thought I'd update the blog to ONCE AGAIN ask for prayers for Emma's healing. Only about 20% of kids with G tubes need to have them closed surgically. After surgery, Chris and I were told it is very rare for an infection to develop after this particular procedure. Once again, we are in the minority on all counts, which is very frustrating. We are praying that God would heal Emma's incision by allowing it to respond to antibiotics. If it does not, they will have to put her under again, re-open the wound and clean it out. I can barely stand the thought of doing this all over again. PLEASE pray with us. I'll keep everyone updated. Thank you so much! I'm off to Starbucks and then the hospital!