Up to tricks again

Well we don't call her little Miss Trouble for nothing..... In the last 24 hours Erin has had a few more blips with drugs levels and their side effects. The dr's say it's nothing they haven't seen before but it's not been as smooth as we would have liked. Her LFTs are still heading in the right direction so that's good but she has developed;
- a fever
- very high heart rate (ranging between 160-200!!!!)
-very fast breathing rate ranging (40-90)
- Tac level of 14, higher than they would like
- low haemoglobin
- high potassium levels (above 6)

Now for the science bit..... So the high Tac level and low haemoglobin combo MAY have resulted in her high potassium levels, which is quite dangerous to her heart. So far the levels are not so high they are likely to cause too many problems yet but we certainly don't want it to go higher.
So to treat high potassium they have;
1) stopped her Tac and started her on a new drug called MMF to stop rejection
2) started her on a nebuliser with drugs to pull the potassium out of her blood, every 2 hours. yup even through the night, such fun & ironically could be causing the fast heart beats
3) given her a blood transfusion to mop up any Tac floating around in blood
4) given her iv drugs to protect her heart and to flush the potassium out
5) hooked her up to an ECG - which beeps an alarm at least once every 5 minutes as her vitals keep going over the limits which is quite unnerving.

However the fever, heart rate & breathing might be an infection so they've also started more antibiotics as the tests will take 48 hours to come back. We are hoping she doesn't have a central line infection but at least they are being pro active in treatments.

They are taking bloods every 6 hours again to reassess but we hope they will be on top of it by tomorrow.

The good news is she has never looked better! She has spent the day smiling at everyone and seems to quite like having a scary mask over her face with steam coming out, such a strange girl!

Just to top things off nicely I've got a cold starting, I'm terrified to give it to tiddles and if I'm any worse tomorrow they will probably not let me on the ward. If I had any energy left I'd scream but I don't so I'm just moping off to bed as it's my night off and I need sleep.


- Posted from my iPhone

Location:Eckersley house accommodation