Another Day Over(ish)

The most signoficant piece of news today is that Kay has tested negative for a "PCP" infection, which was the top of the list of possible nasty infections. Next, she also does not seem to have any aspergillus (thanks for the spelling, Sam. I originally copied it from Marion!) clusters in her kidneys or liver, which is another good thing. This evening the duty doctor came along to explain the status of things with us, but he was less than logical in his explanation. Everytime I asked him a question, he answered a different question. Kinda like talking to a politician.

Anyway, what I gather from him is that Kay's primary problem is inflamation of the lungs. This is usually caused by an infection, but they have not been able to identify the source of the infection. It could well be that the infection has passed, possibly as a result of all the antibiotics or whatever, but that what is left is very serious inflamation. Secondly Kay has aspergillus antibodies in her system which indicate that there's aspergillus somewhere. But they don't know where. It could well be that the aspergillus infection is an secondary opportunistic infection to whatever caused the lung problems in the first place. But then this would just be guess work.

The practical consequence of this is that the treatment for PCP has been reduced from curative to preventative, thus greatly lowering the load on Kay's bone marrow. The treatment for aspergillus continues. General broad spectrum antibiotics will also continue, at least as a preventative measure. Kay is now so full on holes, tubes and invasive objects that the chances of another infection are considerable. Also she's been turned into a morphine and dormicum junkie and as such will have to be detoxed during the next weeks, as and when they start to think about bringing her out of the coma.

We have been told that when (if) she comes out of the coma she will be in shit state. Specifically the muscles she uses to breathe will be significantly atrophied so that great care will have to be taken to rebuild them. Equally all other muscles will be similarly atrophied. The boy who visited us earlier this week is still using a wheelchair a year later.

Having heard that in the best case we should count on being here at least five weeks, I took the opportunity to drive home today to pick up various things, including my bike and cycle gear. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to get out and cycle for a bit. Guess it will be a short ride, I doubt I'll make 30km at the moment. When I got home I was so tired from the drive that I was worried if I would be able to make it back to Nijmegen. What I did get back I fell asleep for an hour in Kay's room, with nurse & doctor moving around.

Kay got a new bed today, the old one was calibrated for an adult (special beds that are designed to prevent pressure sores). Turned out that the job of changing her from one bed to another was massive since both beds could not be fitted into the IC isolation room at the same time. I was not present when this happened, so you'll have to read Marion's account. This will present a nice challenge to the internet literate: which translation tool works best? Babelfish? Google Translate?

Anyway, I'm extremely tired for now. Marion's probably proxy-watching "Holland's got talent" for Kay, so I'm avoiding going back into Kay's room. But I guess that I need to show my face for a minute before heading to bed. Just hope that I don't pick up a TV virus while I'm in there.