Gram negative rods

This morning the PICU intensivist came in to tell me that most of the blood work came back and revealed that she has a "gram negative rod" infection in her catheter. Now, I'm not a pathologist, so I'm not sure what all that means, but he did say that they were still waiting for a couple more cultures to come back so they could pin down where the infection came from (urinary tract, or the catheter itself).

Because late last night the first blood culture had yielded some results they had already started IV antibiotics. If she continues to tolerate them well there is a chance we can beat this infection without needing the catheter removed.

But what about radiation therapy? The intensivist tells us that the infection is too serious to start the therapy tomorrow, and in fact she may be in the hospital at least 3-5 more days. We're worried about tumor progression since the new nodule had grown so much before we got to the second surgery. Please pray that again we will have wisdom about her care, that we would be starting radiation at exactly the right time, and that we can cure the infection without needing to remove the catheter.

06:58 PM, 20 Jun 2004 by C. R. Oldham Permalink | Attach Photo

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