Friday, December 23, 2011

All I want for Xmas is a healthy baby.

Addison's stool sample prompted a call at 4pm yesterday from our GI, she has C-Diff again. Or still has it from before. This has been an ongoing battle since October and I am so frustrated and sad for her... 3 months of constant diarrhea and pain.

This is the sickest she's gotten from it yet, her belly is big and distended. I don't understand how when she's going to the bathroom 7 or 8 times a day. She's running a low-grade fever of 100.4, which is common for her with this stuff. I don't feel like we even have any options, we did 3 rounds of antibiotics and then she did 2 rounds of a stronger drug called Vancomycin. They thought for sure that would take care of it. And somehow, here we are again. Its almost funny that she can't poop on her own at all, and then she gets an infection that gives her diarrhea for months.

Adam and I had to do an irrigation on her last night for the first time in months. I didn't even have the right stuff so I had to use a feeding tube and cut it all up and make do with that. I never in a million years would have  thought I would get to the point where I could give her an irrigation from misc. household supplies but she's taught me a lot about myself. 9 months ago, last night would've been an ER trip, but I'm glad I know how to stay calm and take care of things at home - keeping her away from the bugs in the hospital. We vented the extra air and stool out and she slept comfortably most of the night. She was so patient during it but there was blood in her stool which always makes me nervous that she is going to get worse.

I emailed Dr. Levitt in Cincinnati to see if he has any ideas. The infectious disease specialist we saw wasn't very helpful or insightful into how this fits in to the rest of her issues. I'm just waiting on the phone to ring so I can go pick up her latest round of Vancomycin. It's several hundred dollars, so I am just praying that insurance covers it this time without too much fight since I can't get a hold of anyone there to argue with them about it. I'll update everyone on her later. Sorry if this was rambling...

There is the final option of a stool transplant, which sounds gross but if you can get past the gross factor of it, it makes a lot of sense. You can read more about it here.,... I plan on asking about this if this last round of drugs doesn't work.

http://www.cleveland.com/nation/index.ssf/2010/12/stool_transplant_is_last-ditch.html

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