More Complications

Dr. Bryant did a chest wash out on Lynnea this morning, and still decided not to close her up yet. Due to the positive cultures that have come back from the drainage from her chest tubes, she has been put on yet another antibiotic (she's on three now), and they have decided to irrigate her chest cavity with antibiotic solution on an hourly basis to help kill off any bacteria that are growing in there. During the wash out, they took cultures from the incision site itself, and so far they are all coming back negative; if they remain negative overnight, Dr. St. Louis may decide to close her tomorrow. Prior to the wash out today, her temperature was down a bit, but following the wash out, she again spiked a high fever. The highest it got today was 103.1. That was a few hours ago; now it is down to 100.7. This evening she also began spitting up blood, and draining blood from her G-tube. The doctor that's on this evening seems to think that this is probably a GI bleed somewhere in her stomach from all of the stress that she's been under during this past week (sort of like an ulcer, I believe), or possibly from the back of her throat from the breathing tube. Because of this, she's an even bigger bleed risk than before, so they are not willing to give her any more IV ibuprofen to bring her fevers down. Tylenol is still mostly ineffective, as are the ice packs and wiping her down with cool wash clothes. Nothing else has changed.