I think last night the staff got a little aggressive with Amelia's ventilator settings and she had a bad blood gas right before we left. They bumped her up on the settings and then monitored her blood gasses every 2 hours through the night. When we called to check on her this morning, they had brought her back down on the ventilator pressure. Not as low as last night, but not as high as the day before. Her gasses are back to an acceptable level.
The on call doctor gave me a call around midnight last night to tell me that the blood sample they took several days ago began to grow bacteria. So now they think she has a bacterial infection. She has been on antibiotics for general infection for a while now. It will take several days for them to identify exactly what type of bacteria. Once they identify this, they can use a specific antibiotic to treat that particular bacteria. They are also giving her a spinal tap today to rule out menengitis.
Babies that are on ventilators for a long time can be prone to infection. She also had surgery lately. These bacteria also live on our skin. Any of these things could have been a source for the bacteria. We all wash our hands very carefully, so I refuse to beat myself up thinking it came from one of us.
3 comments:
don't beat yourself up a bit- babies need those loving touches! We are all still praying for baby Amelia! Z and A can't wait to meet this "famous" girl- Love, B
Sam got a really bad bug when he was on the vent too (gram negative...only responds to IV vancomycin which is the strongest antibiotic you can have). Other than the positive cultures, he never actually showed any signs of infection, since they started the medicine so fast. Hopefully that will be the same experience for you and the medicine will knock that bug down quickly!
Yes, they said it was gram negative...that is all they know at this point. I think she has been on vancomycin before -- it sounds familiar. I pray it is not menengitis.
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