Monday, October 3rd - Day 106 Update

Hello,

Tori had some difficulties with her GJ-Tube once again late Sunday night and early Monday morning... This time the J portion of the tube became plugged and we couldn't unplug it... Some of Tori's 10:00pm medications were not dissolved quite enough and a plug developed after given them. Tori was very agitated as she usually is when her GJ-Tube goes bad. We tried loretab and valium to calm her but eventually had to give her dilaudid at 1:30am. That dose put her to sleep for the remainder of the night and into the morning. I spent my first night at the UVRMC and found a nice, dark room with a couch very close to Tori's room. It worked pretty well and I woke up every hour or so to check on her throughout the night.

We were scheduled to get a new GJ-Tube placed first thing in the morning but we ended up getting to radiology around 11:00am... By that time, Tori hadn't received any of her medications or feed for over 12 hours. Thankfully, the GJ-Tube placement actually went quite smoothly this time and they also used a larger type of tube which 'should' help to prevent plugging moving forward. The one drawback of the new GJ-Tube is that it protrudes straight out of Tori's stomach and there basically is NO tube slack to work with. I am anticipating that this will present problems when we begin Tori's full therapies once again.

Tori was weighed today and the results indicate she is now 100.4lbs!! So she is moving in the right direction. Since every scale around here seems to be different I am anxiously awaiting the next weigh in. Hopefully it will show the same result or better. Ten more pounds would be great!! :-).

Tori went all day without the ventilator and vital statistics did well once again. I believe the antibiotics are almost complete by now and there should be only 1 or 2 days left. They did take additional blood and phlegm samples today and we will watch for any new growth on those. None of the previously taken samples have grown out. She was NOT moved from the ICU today.

Tori's PT therapists came by again today and did their normal routine. Tori's muscle tone and spasticity continues to improve mostly because the valproic acid levels are coming back up to the proper levels. Tori still is very startled and reactive to touch though. We are hoping this behavior leaves her as we begin to take her therapies back to full force.

Thanks again and goodnight,

-Tim