Kay's state is pretty worrying. Since Sunday she been treated with antibiotics but continues to periodically spike a fever. Blood tests showed on Tuesday that she has a streptococcus infection that should have been sorted out by the antibiotics. Yesterday further investigation showed that she doesn't have a fungal infection in her lungs, but does have (light) pneumonia. Again the latter is something that the antibiotics she has been getting should have dealt with. Today she essentially has shown no further improvement. So the decision was made to move her to Nijmegen for further investigation and treatment.
The course of the week has been spotted with her being sick (from coughing) and throwing up her NG tube, I think about five times now. Her blood levels have remained low, so yesterday she had an extra unit (or two) of blood and extra platelets. Low blood levels and throwing up the NG tube has been an nasty combination because at one point she had to wait some hours to get platelets before the NG tube could be put back, which ended up being at 1.30 am. To be honest it has been a pretty gruelling week for Kay.
On the positive side her white cell count (neutrocytes) has been increasing, meaning that her system is gaining ground. And we have been told that this can strengthen some of her symptoms as her body fights back more. But on the other hand the doctors in Nijmegen have decided that it's necessary to keep her on a heart monitor and also found that her O2 sats were low, so she's now also getting oxygen.
Her situation has been described as worrying but not yet serious enough for me to travel to Nijmegen. I should mention that I have been in bed for three days with pretty much the same symptoms, periodic fever spikes, fluid on my lungs, aching, etc, etc. If Kay has the same bug as I do then I'm not surprised that it's hit hard - it's hit me hard and I'm pretty fit (110km MTB last week). I spoke to the lead specialist a few hours ago and asked directly if, bearing in mind my condition, she thought that I should be in Nijmegen, and she thought not. She says that Nijmegen need some time to build their own picture and then they'll let us know what they think.
Marion is carrying the primary care for Kay on her own and she's having a damned hard time. I've just arranged for her mother to go and give her support until I can/am allowed to be there. I think that this situation is slowly becoming as worrying as the epileptic coma days. However this is taking longer and is getting more worrying by the day, without a clear diagnosis in sight.
Where is Doctor House when you need him?
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