Savanna Still in Hospital
Well, here we go again. Savanna seemed to be doing better yesterday morning, but that was short-lived. Her blood cultures came back and she has a Strep-A infection in her chest. That is what contributed to her “blowing her lung out”. We have now found out that she actually has 2 holes in her right lung. One in the upper lobe and one in the lower. She is on 2 different IV antibiotics to treat the infection. Her IV site failed her 4 times yesterday and one of them infiltrated which made her foot swell up pretty bad.
It seems that she will need to be on these antibiotics for 7-21 days. Quite a wide range. The chest tube continues to drain pus from her chest, so far over 250 cc’s. Her chest x-ray from this morning is worse than yesterday. They will continue to x-ray her each morning and check her blood gases. It is possible they will have to insert a second chest tube, but we obviously hope not.
While I am glad to know she is getting the best care possible, it still breaks my heart for her to be hospitalized. They have moved her to one of the “glass rooms” in ICU at my request to try and minimize her exposure. I realize that as sick as she is, there is no way we could take care of her at home. She needs to be seen by a doctor on a daily basis and needs a chest x-ray taken on a daily basis as well.
Here are my requests from all of you. Some of them you can probably help with, some you may not be able to.
1. Pray specifically that her IV site will hold up and not fail again. They will try to keep doing the regular IV but may have to go to a central line. Doing a central line increases her risk for infection.
2. Pray specifically that her lungs will heal and her chest wall as well. Also pray that the infection will respond well to the antibiotics and that she will NOT get any other infections and/or viruses.
3. Pray for wisdom for the doctors, therapists and nurses and for rest for Savanna. They had to sedate her last night and today to help her rest. I’m sure she is in a considerable amount of pain with all that is going on in her chest cavity.
4. Continue to pray for a great job for Tim (soon) and rest for us.
We are trying to schedule people to come and sit with Savanna and read her books and keep her company. Please let me know when and if you are available. We are trying to schedule 2 hour shifts to cover her. Just email me and let me know when you are available and I will pass it on to mom.
We have started a website for Savanna. I will work on that tomorrow. That will make it easier to communicate with everyone on a daily basis. We will do daily Savanna updates that you can check. I will email you with that information as well.
As always, thank you all. I’ll be in touch.
Love,
Mindy
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