T+51: (Morning) Corner Turned?

Could it be that we have started to turn a corner? Kay has not been sick since Friday evening and this morning she had put on 400gm weight. She looks a little better and her meds are going in with only a bit of discomfort in her tummy. She hasn't had a fever in 24 hours, but she still needs to oxygen. Since I returned yesterday afternoon she has done nothing but sleep. I reckon that she's barely been awake for an hour in all that time. But hopefully sleep is a sign of recovery, though I'm not sure how to distinguish the sleep of recovery from the sleep of total exhaustion.

I failed to mentioned that, apart from the need to wait for the results of the various tests & cultures that have been set in motion, the doctors are also waiting for the effect of a higher dose of the anti-CMV virus drug to cut in. Monday last week the dosage that Kay was getting was raised from once per day to twice per per because the level of the CMV virus (measured the week before) had risen. According to the doctors it takes around a week for this increase to show an effect. You can see the problem here: it takes 3-4 days for the results of a CMV virus measurement to be known. It then takes another week before any adjustment to the related medication is likely to have an effect and another 3-4 days to get the results of the next measurement before knowing if the adjustment worked...

We're somewhere in the middle of this cycle, which is another reason why the medics are in no great hurry to come to a conclusion. They think that Kay's symptoms are most likely caused by the CMV virus and therefore they are waiting to see if her condition improves on the increased dosage. Perhaps the improvement that we're seeing today indicates that this softly, softly approach has been/is the right one. One thing to note as well is that the CMV antiviral

If the improvement continues I think we can conclude that 1) the biggest improvement in her nausea came from changing the NG feed, 2) that the next biggest improvement came from mixing the cyclosporine in full cream milk instead of that thin watery diet stuff (don't know the english name) and 3) that the trailing end of the vomiting was caused by the CMV virus, which would then be under control from by the Valanciclovir (that's the drug that is now costing EUR 1150,- per week. I'm awed by that figure!). Still we have to wait and see if the "If" is really the case or not.

The next challenge is to get Kay to start drinking and eating. Yesterday Marion & I did a deal with her: she had to eat five small bites of macaroni. If she didn't then Marion & I got to spend the next night together in the McD house. Kay, being a negotiator by nature, got this down to four bites before agreeing. But in the event she just slept and only woke briefly at the time that I was busy with her medication, which isn't the right time to insist that she eat something. So the idea now is to try to get her to eat at lunchtime today, when she as no meds. We'll see.