Tuesday, January 30th - Day 18 in Hangzhou, China

Good evening from Hangzhou,

Tori didn't get the good rest we had hoped for Monday evening and early Tuesday morning... She was pretty much up all night and I was as well trying to keep the phlegm in her lungs suctioned out. She wasn't really coughing at all to clear it herself as she was too weak to do so. We kept her on numerous medications including motrin, zanaflex, xanax and even ambien to try and keep her calm and to possibly help her sleep. It didn't help too much though as she kept building up phlegm in her lungs and was 'rattling' all night... We watched her blood oxygen level and temperature closely and she maintained 90% and above on her oxygen and her temperature was usu sally floating around 38 degrees Celsius or 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

By 8:00am Tuesday morning she was so exhausted she finally fell asleep. I suctioned alot of phlegm out of her during the night and at least she was sounding pretty clear before sleeping. The medical staff came by on their rounds at 8:30am and they took a sputum sample and ordered for Tori to start on two antibiotics which are used generally in China. They are Azithromycin and Cefotaxime and are broad spectrum antibiotics. So the combination of the two should cover a wide cross section of bacteria that is common in China and in this hospital and we will run three days worth. In the USA we would typically use Keflex, Levaquin and Zosyn on Tori for the same reasons. The last time Tori was in a condition similar to this was last July at PCMC (Primary Children's Medical Center) and we never did identify the bacteria through sputum samples that caused the condition. And that has happened previously with Tori as well so I prefaced the medical staff here of those occurrences. Our thoughts now are that Tori basically has a common cold which normally will last three to five days. We need it to be closer to three or four days because Tori's rescheduled SCT treatment is now slated for Friday afternoon...

The good news is that Tori actually did much, much better during the day today!! :-) As we have always said, Tori is very strong and usually fends off illnesses quite well and the Chinese herb mixture is continuing it's course as well and may be greatly helping . During her morning recovery nap her temperature went down to 37 degrees Celsius which is about her normal temperature and her lungs sounded clearer and clearer throughout the day. Since Tori was getting her first batch of antibiotics through her IV in the late morning, James decided to do her acupuncture and EMT then and her PT in the afternoon. Since Tori was so exhausted and sound asleep he was easily able to do acupuncture and and EMT and Tori didn't even wake up. In fact, James used some extra needles in her normally untouchable face and their placement is designed to help us get that ever elusive Tori smile :-)

Tori woke up in a good mood just after lunch and watched a movie until her PT session at 3:30pm. Tori was a little tight during the session as she hadn't had one since Saturday. James completed the normal routine and had her in the stander at 60 degrees today. Tori worked up a good sweat and her temperature rose to only 37.5 degrees. When she was finished it dropped back to 37 degrees where it remains now. She did somehow manage to knock out the IV on her left hand tonight and it made a small mess before we noticed it... We asked them to place the new IV in her right hand which is safer because she doesn't bring it over her head or to her face as much as her left hand.

It's 8:30pm now and Tori is just starting to fall asleep. She sounds good now, has great stats and should still be quite tired from Monday night. We can only hope at this point but all of us could use a good night of sleep and rest!! :-)

Thank you all and good night,

-Tim, Maria and Tori