Tuesday, July 26th - Day 37 Update

Good evening,

It was determined early this morning that the bacteria in Tori's blood stream is E coli. She more than likely was infected when she aspirated after vomiting which caused stomach or small intestine content to enter her lungs. As I mentioned in yesterdays update, two Antibiotics have been given to combat the E coli and they will be continued to be given for 10 days. Blood samples will be drawn each morning to check for the presence of E coli. The antibiotics are expected to clear the E coli up within 3-4 days.

Tori's temperature remained in the normal 37 degrees Celsius range all day today which is a good sign. She is obviously using all of her energy to fight off the E coli because she is resting and sleeping quite a bit. She will only open her eyes for 10-15 minutes before returning to sleep for a few more hours.

During the last few days since the E coli infection, Tori has not been getting enough fluids so she was very dehydrated. We have been pumping fluids into her as fast as we can today and she is looking much better tonight. Her input and output of fluids is pretty much back to normal again.

A CAT Scan taken at 4:00am this morning has narrowed Tori's digestive issues down to an inflamed Duodenum. She has recieved medication to help with this issue and the fluid coming from her stomach then out of her G-Tube is no longer dark green or black colored as it was yesterday. The fluid is a much more normal looking light green. Based on this improvement Tori will begin getting feeds again later tonight and she is in dire need of them. Her weight has dropped to around 100lbs...

Tori will spend tonight in the PICU again so they can closely monitor all of her symptoms and progress. She is also scheduled to be moved to the 3rd floor tomorrow. The 3rd floor is a recovery floor where Tori will be monitored for several days and at some point will be declared 'stable' again... At that point we can possibly return her to the NTU where she could hopefully begin the highly desired physical therapy.

I will close tonights update on a positive note by stating Tori's appearance just looks much, much better than the past few days. Her color is back and she no longer appears dehydrated. It was also very positive to see her open her eyes throughout the day to scan the room. She also tracked movement while her eyes were open.

I will be spending another night here at the hospital with her so everyone please wish us good luck!!

Thank you all,

-Tim