Not such a great weekend.....

Well after my last post things got a bit more interesting and on Thursday night Erin became projective sickness and diorrhea. This continued all night long, when I rang Yorkhill her consultant didn't seem too concerned and told us to stop the antivirals but basiclly said 'What do you want me to do about it'. Deep joy......We were to ring back if things got any worse. During the day she was a little better and we thought she had finally stopped being sick. However come 8pm on Friday evening, when all the doctors had gone home and A&E would be warming up nicely Erin spiked a temp and threw up her Tac. She was up to 38.9 in a matter of minutes so we had to stick her in the car and drive to Glasgow, the last thing you want to do when things are a bit messy so to speak.

Our evening went like this, arrive at 9pm, see a triage nurse, moved to 'short stay', see another triage nurse 10pm, see a junior dr 11pm, wait another 2.5 hours....finally see a registrar at 1.30pm. Everytime going back to the beginning and explaining Erin's medical history. The A&E reg looked in her mouth and saw her tonsils were full of puss so it was looking like tonsilitis. As she was so poorly she needed IV antibiotics and fluids so a cannula was called for. The lovely A&E reg got one in a dodgy vein that would do fo a few hours. We were finally taken to a ward at 4.30am, our (not so) favourite 3b which is more of a neonatal high dependency unit and not exactly family friendly.....We got settled in only to find the IV fluids hadn't been properly percribed so much faffing later she got a drip started at 6am. My patience was fairly thin by this point having been awake since 7am on Wednesday. Bloods showed CRP level of 55 but everything else was looking good so all pointing to infection rather than rejection (always a worry).

The IV antibiotics seemed to work quickly to control the fever but they came with a hefty price tag of horriffic diorrhea. The cannula lasted 12 hours by which time her fluid levels were back up so thankfully we were able to swich to oral antibiotics. She was fairly exhausted with it all so we were very glad to only have to stay one more night and we got out on Sunday afternoon. Between Wednesday morning and Sunday afternoon I'd squeezed in just 6 hours of sleep, not good. In 36 hours we had gone through 66 nappies, smashing her previous record of 35 in 24 hours pre transplant.

It's amazing how all the things that took weeks to bug me on previous stays on this ward annoyed me the minute we arrived. The utter lack of common sense is astounding. It took me 4 hours to settle her to sleep on Saturday night, after 2 hours of blissful peace Erin was woken for oral antibiotics which could have EASILY waited another couple of hours, que 2 hours of hysterical screaming as the poor wee lamb had really had enough of all the poking and proding by now. Surely rest is as importants as meds for recovery? Finally got her settled and sleeping when at 4am someone comes in the room to change the flaming sterilising fluid container!!!!! She didn't stay in the room for long I can assure you. This is just a few of the things that make hospital life really frustrating. Don't even get me started on the 'hand over all your childs meds at the door' policy when they have NO knowledge or experience in dispensing these meds so I politely declined and suggested they take it up with the ward manager, funnily enough it wasn't mentioned again.....When they came round at 10.30am to 'give Erin her meds' I told her they were 3 hours too late, thankfully I'd stuck to my guns the day before and she hadn't missed her Tac dose.

On the plus side Erin has discarded dummies! I think her throat was too sore to swallow so she wouldn't have one in hospital so she is done with them. She was barely eaten since Wednesday, she seems very 'gaggy' so will only tolerate custard, jelly and yogurts, who would have thought I'd be delighted that she ate jelly for dinner? She must have lost quite a bit of weight so thankfully the resrves she built up over christmas have done her well.

So we were back for check up bloods today to see what effect all of this has had on her Tac levels, still wait on the the results. I was anxious about going today as our liver specialist nurse was off on holiday and there are a new term of registrars on duty. I needn't have worried, we now have a new favourite reg called Gavin! Erin was quite taken with him and let him examin her with no fuss. He took blood via thumb prick which was sooooo much better than attempting a veinous sample.  She is still very pale but her throat looked fine so hopefully the worst of the infection is gone and we just have to hope the side effects of the anitbiotics don't last too long, the course finishes on Friday.

Hannah must know Erin is feeling off colour so we indulged in some dog therapy.

who can resist beagle ears?

cuddles

'At last a tummy patting minion' says Hannah