5 months...and more

I am so sad. Could things be worse? Absolutley. Is Elizabeth dealing with a five month-long nightmare? Yes.

Her little tummy can only take so much. CDiff aside, she still faces another major surgery and all of the other GI and immunity issues she has going on in that body of hers. Still, ten years of stomach issues, six surgeries and more procedures than we can count seems to pale in comparison to the past five months of this infection.

I have avoided tears for a while. A strange combination of hope, will, determination, and the fear that if I started crying I may not stop, has kept the tears at bay for a while. Last night though I lost it. I stood in the bathroom, holding the hemmoccult cards in my hand and I sobbed. Walter came in and hugged me and then asked me to stop crying....I did not. I think my weakness to give into the tears was a mix of fatigue, worry, frustration, and the fact that in a three hour time span I'd dealt with Katilin's dead fish, a lizard in the house and a bleeding Liz. Sounds like a horrible country song, doesn't it?

Liz has been off the antibiotics for 12 days now. We had differing opinions from the doctors about starting a new drug, so we opted to wait to see if her body would recover on its own; if her healthy bacteria would overtake the toxin. It did not. The infection has raged-on and is now causing the bleeding, cramping and pain that is a sure-sign it has also caused colitis.

I spoke with the ID (infectious disease) doctor here this morning. He said "it was only a matter of time" before this happened, given her symptoms last week. I wanted to ask him if he prays because "only a matter of time" doesn't exist where miracles are concerned. In any case, he told me that he had spoken with one of the ID docs from UCLA and they agree on a plan. She'll start on a new drug immediately, for a 14 day course of treatment. If this drug doesn't work, we'll go to the newly-approved by the FDA drug that has not been tested on anyone under 18. Fantastic.

If that drug fails, we would go for the fecal transplant. Some of you have written and asked why the transplant isn't being done now. The answer is as simple as it is complicated. Fecal transplants are done in Europe, but rarely done in the States. It is not as though we are at a small-town hospital. Liz is beng treated at a large and a major medical center and neither have performed a fecal transplant....that isn't a coincidence. For as simple as it sounds to perform the transplant, there is still great risk involved.

The doctor suggested I consider having her admitted today for observation. I did not. His biggest concern is her fluid intake. If she doesn't drink or if her fever remains or she gets extra sick-like, I will. Oh how my way of assesing how "bad" she is has changed.

So that's it. More medication, more waiting, more praying.
If you pray, please do for Liz. Ask your friends to pray. Ask God to help her.