Back in the hospital and RSV

So around 3:00 am on Thursday, Jess checked Sarah's temperature and found it to be 99 F.  That meant that we needed to check it every hour.  At 4:00 am, her temperature was the dreaded 101 F.  That meant a trip to the ED.  Sarah and I arrived at the ED about 45 minutes later.  After getting a blood draw and getting the results, we found that her ANC was in the 70s.  That meant that we were admitted to the hospital.  Labs were sent out.  Sarah and I made our way to the 2nd floor of the hospital and settled in a room just before 8:00am.

Mid morning Sarah complained about her shirt being wet.  I assumed it was from her drink, but as I looked closer, her IV line was leaking.  It quickly started to have some blood flow out of her port.  We sealed off the port and found that it was just the connector that was loose.

The doctors rounded in the afternoon.  Sarah's labs showed that she was positive for 2 viruses.  The first was rhino virus, which is the common cold.  The second was RSV.  The doctors had conversations with infectious desease doctors and because of Sarah's numbers being low, they decided to treat her with ribavirin.  This is a medicine that is taken with a machine similar to a nebulizer.  She wears a mask and has a tent placed around her.  It also requires a room with negative pressure capabilities.  That meant that we had to move rooms again.  We are on the 3rd floor in the Hem/Oc unit rather than in overflow rooms around the hospital.  The treatment takes 2 hours, where she has the mask on.  They don't like anyone else in the room unless they have a filter mask system on.  Then she needs to stay in for 1 hour after the treatment is done, before the room is ok.  These treatments happen 3 times a day for the next 5 days.  It will be tough.

The treatment tonight was supposed to start at 8pm.  They put the order into the pharmacy late, so they were expecting to start around 9pm.  The respiratory therapist check on it about 9:30 and there was a mixup with the paperwork, so the pharmacy hadn't started on the medicine.  It takes about 1 hour to get the medicine ready.  So It is almost 10:30pm and they are just now getting ready to start the first treatment.  We have had to put sheets over bedding since particles will fall out of the air during the procedure.

This will be a hard week.  Please pray for us.  We are grateful for all those who have prayed for us.  We are very grateful for all those who have reached out and helped make our lives easier.