Day 3 in PICU

Today Nora was sleepy, but seemed a bit more comfortable since she didn't seem to need pain medication in order to sleep. She fell asleep on her own a few times. Her neurosurgeon plans to draw fluid from her brain tomorrow to test to see if the infection is clearing. Since he needs to pull it from inside the ventricle, it will be done in the OR with sedation and the whole works. He will test the fluid immediately to see if there is bacteria, but the full results don't come back for a couple of days (sort of like the days long ago when I used to do "bug counts" at the paper mill!). If the immediate test (called a gram stain) shows no signs of bacteria. If there is bacteria, he will install the ventriculostomy - which she had with the surgery in the first place - so we have easier access to collect more fluid later if needed. If there is no bacteria, then she will just continue with the antibiotics for a couple of weeks and should be better.

Of course, things are always changing though.

This afternoon she had a seizure. This is a first for Nora. We have always been told to expect that she may be at risk for seizures, but she has not had one yet. After the seizure she had an EEG which showed she was no longer having a seizure (which was obvious if you ask me since she was playing with the sock covering her IV hand the whole time). The EEG did look a bit "abnormal" but she has never had an EEG done before, so it is hard to say why it looked like that. I think that if you have ever looked at pictures of Nora's brain (which I have decided not to post on this blog since they are sort of startling), you would be surprised if any sort of normal EEG would come out of it. So, for that reason I am not too shaken by any abnormal EEG. I think that her normal is likely different than most people. She seems to be acting normally now, although still sick and fussy. At any rate, we will now have to get her neurologist pulled back into the mix to sort out the seizure business. She is on some anti-seizure medication now to help prevent it from happening again. Maybe it is just from the infection. Or fever. Or - okay, I will stop speculating and just wait until tomorrow's post to find out more...