7-29-17 Ira's at Dayton Childrens

Don't worry, Ira's bowels are perfectly fine!

 She ever so kindly allowed us to take a break from that area and has redirected our attention to her upperbody! Upperbody being her brain and her overall immune system. 

Thursday afternoon, Ira gave us quite the scare. I wasn't feeling well, so my dad came over to play with Ada so I could sleep. During Ira's afternoon nap she unknowingly started to sieze.  Normally, she will sleep for 2 hours, so at 4:30 I went upstairs to check on her. I found Ira covered in vomit, drenched in sweat and completely unresponsive. Her body was completely limp and her head and eyes were turned to the left and did not move. Her legs and arms were convulsing. I screamed and my dad came running up the stairs, he picked her up as I rushed to find my phone to call 911. While holding her, Ira stayed unresponsive but started to have convulsions again lasting only a couple of seconds. Paramedics showed up at 4:45 taking Ira and I in the back and my mom and her road rage in the front, to Wayne in Greenville. There was no time to get her to Childrens, because her breathing was severely compromised. Upon arriving at Wayne, the charge nurse on duty that night was the only person in the ER that had any experience working with babies. So, between her and my Aunt Becky, they were able to stabilize her enough to be transported by CareFlight, despite her having another convulsive seizure and extremely high fevers. Linden road with her in the helicopter and arrived at Dayton Childrens in a matter of 10 minutes. At 7:20 Ira had a CT scan that came back normal, at 8:00 she finally came out of her seizure and was able to make eye contact and recongize Linden and I. She started to act more like Ira Jo but was very groggy, due to all the anti-seizure medication and her 103 fever.

Friday morning at 11, Ira Jo got a EEG which also came back normal. We were moved from the PICU floor to a more relaxed floor because Ira showed good improvement. She was still having fevers around 101 but was acting more like herself. We got news that her blood cultures taken from Wayne were growing bacteria, and was pointing them towards either a bacterial infection, sepsis or bacterial meningitis. The neurologist came in and explained her seizures as Prolonged Complex Febrile. PCF meaning a seizure that accures with a spike in fever, lasting more than 15 minutes with no alterness between seizures (for example, Ira's lasted 3 1/2 hours). He explained that she will have to be closely monitored for any signs of illness that cause fever; teething, runny nose, cold etc. We were also trained first aid for seizures, given a medication that needs to be with her at all times and told that anyone who may watch her needs to know how to administer first aid as well.  She has a 50% chance of having more of these seizures because they are prolonged and complex.

Saturday... we were told that we might go home, until they talked to the infectious diease department which said based on the bacteria they found growing in her blood cultures, they felt she needed to stay at the hospital until they could rule out bacterial meningitis or another bacterial infection in her blood. According to the doctor, bacterial meningitis is not something you mess around with. Which brings us to present moment where we are currently waiting for her spinal tap at 8PM. They said that we need to be praying that they dont find any bacteria and little to no white blood cells in her spinal fluid. 

That is all the information I have as of now. We should get her white blood cell count from her spinal tap back in about 10-15 minutes after the procedure is done. We wont know about the bacteria for a couple days. They did say if it comes back as meningitis they will have to treat it very quickly and hard. They will have to place a PICC line to administer medications to get it to the brain faster. We would be able to go home with the PICC line but because it's placed in her arm and setting just above her heart, it makes me very very nervous. So if you could say a prayer for the spinal tap, the results, and for us to adjust well to whatever result we get, that would be greatly appreciated. Of course a prayer for Ira to heal quickly would be wonderful as well. 

Thank you!! 

Updates coming soon.

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