22 Days Later

That's a little misleading. We haven't been here that long yet, but that is the new target date - next Tuesday. So far, neither culture drawn directly from Audrey's vein have shown anything, but they identified the bacteria that has been growing in the culture from the IV line as staph, and not just any staph, a particularly nasty one along with a fairly mild strep bacteria.

Being very clear here - Audrey DOES NOT CURRENTLY HAVE A STAPH INFECTION. A sample of blood taken from her IV, which was removed right after drawing the blood, had staph & strep bacterium. The fact that none is growing in the blood not taken from this line, means she does not have these bacterium in her blood. Around 4 pm tomorrow, both cultures from her blood will be 48 hours old, and if they continue to show no bacteria at that point, this is definite that she does not have either of these infections - great news!

However, because this staph is a serious one, and given the fact that it was found in a line that was in her body, no chances can be taken. Not treating her with antibiotics for this staph is way too risky after heart surgery. So, Audrey is on a 14 day run of IV antibiotics. Another bit of good news is that although this staph is a serious one, it is pretty "sensitive" - meaning easy to knock out.

The antibiotics they started Wednesday at midnight is the one needed for this, so we're already 2 days into it. The plan is to put in a "PICC line" (new more permanent IV), monitor it for a day, and send us home Tuesday. The home infusion company will come to the hospital and train us on how to administer the IV ourselves, and we will take care of administering the antibiotics through her line at home for a week.

So, even though Audrey is most likely perfectly healthy, we are erring on the side of caution. It was not at all easy to hear that this healthy child would have to be here four more days, but we talked this over with her cardiologists and infectious disease specialists and we all agree this is best for her.

I have decided to stay through the weekend. Some of the doctors are saying we'll go home Monday and some are saying Tuesday. Hopefully it will be Monday, but we've learned not to get our hopes up, so we assume the longer of the two.

Please continue to pray that no bacteria grows in the blood samples and that this IV treatment goes smoothly. Please also pray that we get out of here on Tuesday as scheduled with no more setbacks.