Evelyn 1 month old

Evelyn turns 1 month!  Here are some pictures of that first month.

Evelyn - Meningitis

Hey everyone,

All tests are in and the doc says there is an excellent chance here for full recovery!  After that rough Friday of 3 Lumbar Punctures and the PICC IV, the hospital team decided they'd let us have a full day's rest on Saturday.  Evee continued to have temperatures all day Saturday but beginning this morning, she actually maintained non-fever temperatures without Tylenol.  You can tell she's feeling much much better.

Here's a couple pics of Evee and Jess. 

Quoc

Evelyn - Meningitis

Hey guys,

Today was a pretty rough day for Evee.  Early in the morning, we were scheduled for a Lumbar Puncture (LP) that didn't succeed.  They stick a needle in your spine to extract out the liquid in your spinal column; although local anesthetic is administered, they have to pin Evee down on her side in fetal position in order to try.  Since this failed, they gave Evee a break then they had to try again at noon. 

With the second LP not only were they unsuccessful at it again, they scheduled the PICC IV just before.  The PICC IV is where they stick you with a needle in your vien and feed a tube that will run all the way in close to your heart.  They are putting this in so that when we go home we can administer the anti-biotics intravienously for efficiency.  They stuck her in her upper right arm first and that one didn't work so they went up and poked her near her wrist.  After they put the IV in, they have to X-Ray her to make sure the IV is in the right place.

Just to add to the merryment, Evee also gets a rectal temperature taken every 4 hours.  Jessica thinks she now has a phobia of diaper changes because of this; she shrieks every time we change her diaper.  Finally, in the afternoon, Evee gets her third Lumbar Puncture.  The good news is they can get out a sample.  The bad news is just after the LP they find out the IV is too close to her heart so they have to pull it out a couple of centimeters.  So she's pinned down once again to adjust that.

We're now into the night and Evee's back is pretty sore from the LPs.  It's gonna be a long night but well, I think it was all worth it.  The results from the LP are now 3000 down from 12000 white blood cell count.  Which means have made a lot of progress on killing E coli in the meningis now.  Also, the PICC IV is a lot more comfortable than the shallow one she had on her left hand.

If all goes according to the books, it should be more down hill from here.  We've gotta get through tonight for Evee's back pain and hopefully a couple more days fever free.  We'll be here at least until Monday.

I will continue to send updates, but starting tomorrow, things should be a bit more mellow.  Feel free to give me a ring if you wanna say hello.

Love,

Quoc

Evelyn - Meningitis

Hey everyone,

First off I just wanted to say that Evelyn, Jess and I are so grateful for your love and support!  We feel very well loved with you guys offering to help.  Momma, thanks for the Com and Goi Cuon.

Today Evee was in and our of fevers lingering in between 100.3 and 101.9 degrees today.  Which is actually a good thing at this point in the game.  Doctors say that her having those fevers means her body is fighting off the bacteria.  We have confirmed that two of the bloodwork tests have come back negative which means the E coli bacteria has been eliminated from the blood.  It takes special antibiotics and time for them to penetrate the spinal column and meninges so tomorrow morning we will have another spinal tap done to get a status on how the antibiotics are doing on the actual meningitis.

Some really good news is that today we got a cat scan on Evee's head to see if any bacteria or white blood cells had made any pockets in her brain.  The result came back all clear which is a huge relief.

Even though Evee's still aching and running the fevers, Jess and I are really glad to see that at time during the day when the Tylenol kicks in that our baby is acting like the baby we knew for the first 9 days.  Boy, being a parent has become quite the adventure already!

Quoc

Evelyn - Meningitis

Hey guys,

So, here's another status. The doctors have identified the bacteria that is associated with this spinal meningitis and it is E coli.  Meningitis is life threatening but at this point in Evee's treatment and progress has gotten her out of that category.  Evee is responding well to the antibiotics that they started on her early on.  Also, this E coli doesn't have resistances to any of the antibiotics that they are administering.  The big take away at this point is that the swelling of the fluid in the brain can cause long term developmental complications.  At this point, that's our biggest concern.

How is Evee doing.  I've been with her since that first day and it's amazing how many messages you can start to pick up from the way they cry and behave.  The first day, she was lethargic and pretty much couldn't wake up.  She had a fever and would have very weak crying that petered off into constant weak moans.  You could tell that any movement caused her to ache as she would cry hard then moan.  She also would not eat that first day, once we got to the hospital they hooked her up to an IV and also late that night, she chugged a bottle of pedialite pretty hard.

Over the past day she's actually been feeding on momma's milk again along with the IV.  She now takes mommy's bottle every 2 hours and gives good healthy burps, poops and pees.  She's still very achy to moving around but they've been giving her some tylenol which has helped her to relax and sleep a bit more.  It still breaks my heart to feel her with the the 100 degree fevers.  The doctors do say that during her fight this week she'll be in and out of these fevers.

I'm trying to be as descriptive as possible, Jess is a lot better about describing all the facts.  As with the first 9 days, days and nights begin to blur.  On top of that, this ordeal has seemingly turned hours into days.  Since we got into the hospital Monday afternoon, it's now been almost 48 hours.  To me these past two days has felt like an eternity.  As mom, dad, craig and sandy saw, I was literally cracked in half the first day at the thought that I could lose Evee.  But today, I'm hopeful that she might make a full recovery.  And if not that, I am humbly greatful for Evee even with some developmental issues in the future.

Grandpa Craig is great at making jokes to lighten our hearts.  He says that if Evee does have hearing loss in the future, they'll learn sign language together as his hearing is not so great as well.

We're hangin in there, we are trying to keep visitors to a minimum to keep Evee from having to catch any other bugs on top of this one.  Feel free to forward this to anyone you feel wants to know how we're doing.

Quoc

Urgent News, Evelyn

Everyone:

Quoc and Jessica called me this morning and informed me that Evelyn is in urgent condition and they wanted me to help pass the news along.  Evelyn contracted spinal meningitis.  Spinal meningitis is an extremely serious illness and happens when a bacterial infection gets past the barrier to the spinal cord.  The state of the matter is that they were able to catch it very early, which is a very good thing.  The best case scenario is that Quoc, Jessica, and Evelyn will be living at the hospital for the next week while Evelyn is treated and watched over.  They could be there for much longer depending on how things go.  There is a possibility of long term complications, but as of now, since they caught it so early, she is looking well.  They have her on antibiotics and her fever and organ functions have stabalized.  They have a team of doctors who will be taking a look at her within the next couple hours and hopefully can find the specific bacteria that caused the infection so they can better target it.  Since the nature of the infection is exposure to bacteria, visitors should be limited since any further infections could weaken her even more.  The doctors told Quoc and Jessica to be "cautiously optimistic" and I think we all should as well.

Quan