Saturday, August 13th - Day 55 Update

Good evening,

I'm sitting next to Tori tonight creating this update. I finally hit up the IS&T team here at the PCMC and begged them for wireless network access. The technician I worked with was a former Novell guy so now I am all set!! :-) Very nice!!

Now on to Tori. She is resting quite well and her vital signs are all looking absolutely great again!! A live look at her blood pressure shows a nice 130/78mmHg. Her temperature has been hanging in the 38 degree Celsius range all day as she continues to fight off the Cocci related bacteria. Tori did wake up today and provided us all her bright and beautiful eyes. She very actively scanned and interacted with us once again which was so nice to witness. Tori continues to bite down on her lower lip when she becomes agitated so it is pretty cut up and swollen at the moment... They actually had to stuff a small towel in her mouth last night to help out on the lip biting.

Tori currently has an NJ-Tube, NG-Tube and suction tube going through her nose. All of her medications and feeds are going though the NJ-Tube into her small intestine. She is getting 30 milliliters per hour of continuous feed at this moment. The NG-Tube and suction tube are into her stomach and are simply clearing out the Bile at all times to hopefully prevent her from vomiting again. I forgot to mention yesterday that the GI surgeons attempted to replace the G-Tube into her stomach with a GJ-Tube. They were unsuccessful in getting the tube inserted into her Small Intestine because Tori's Pyloric Sphincter is not operating correctly. The GI doctors believe it might be related to Tori's very low body weight... Again, this is our main focal area now so there will be much more on this topic during the next several days.

Tori also has Subclavian Central Venous Line which goes straight into or very close to her heart. It is a triluminal line so 3 sets of medications can be given simultaneously if needed.

Maria and Aunt Laurie also had a little scare last night when the Zanaflex we supposedly quit giving Tori was given to her again... This caused her blood pressure to drop once again and they had to give her Dopamine again to counter it... Absolutely crazy... We have found out since that Tori DOES need to be weened off Zanaflex so there aren't any other issues but the dosage could have been smaller. She will get one more half dose of 2 milligrams tonight and we will be watching her response very, very closely.

Alright, the Zanaflex is being administered now so I'm signing off!!

Thank you all once again,

-Tim