Bloody hell, I thought it would be getting easier by now.
With my man-flu still just about hanging around, and some DIY to be finished, Leela went in to the hospital on her own again this morning. Not long after she arrived there, she called me to reveal today's latest developments.
Willow had just had a lumbar puncture, which is a procedure carried out to test some spinal fluid for an indication that the infection had reached her brain. Willow's blood cultures came back last night as positive for Strep B, which usually only occurs in babies straight after they're born, or 90 days after. Any other time and it usually comes in the form of meningitis or septicaemia; hence the need for a lumbar puncture.
So anyway, I did some googling after that phonecall. Which was bad. I broke the golden rule of having a baby in intensive care - 'Don't google'. You will always focus on the most negative thing that Wikipedia tells you. After reading the statistics for Strep B infections, such as 1 in 10 babies will die of blood poisoning, and if they survive, 1 in 5 will be severely disabled, my brain went into overdrive as usual. I thought, sod this woodwork, and got a taxi to the hospital so I could be there with Leela when they broke the bad news of the results.
Just as I got there, the news was being broken to Leela. And it wasn't bad.
Another one of those glorious moments you get in NICU when things turn out to not be as horrible as they possibly could be. Willow did not have any infection in her brain; in fact this Strep B bug was probably just on the skin as the needle was going in to take some blood for the initial test.
Our daughter was looking much better today, so the cocktail of antibiotics she is taking appear to be doing their job and killing anything nasty. She was looking as lovely as usual, completely oblivious to all this fuss going on around her. Back in the nursery, her brother had another good day. He appears to be free of any infections, and spent most of the day sprawled out in the big double cot.
Just another family Saturday together then. Could do with a more normal one soon.
With my man-flu still just about hanging around, and some DIY to be finished, Leela went in to the hospital on her own again this morning. Not long after she arrived there, she called me to reveal today's latest developments.
Willow had just had a lumbar puncture, which is a procedure carried out to test some spinal fluid for an indication that the infection had reached her brain. Willow's blood cultures came back last night as positive for Strep B, which usually only occurs in babies straight after they're born, or 90 days after. Any other time and it usually comes in the form of meningitis or septicaemia; hence the need for a lumbar puncture.
So anyway, I did some googling after that phonecall. Which was bad. I broke the golden rule of having a baby in intensive care - 'Don't google'. You will always focus on the most negative thing that Wikipedia tells you. After reading the statistics for Strep B infections, such as 1 in 10 babies will die of blood poisoning, and if they survive, 1 in 5 will be severely disabled, my brain went into overdrive as usual. I thought, sod this woodwork, and got a taxi to the hospital so I could be there with Leela when they broke the bad news of the results.
Just as I got there, the news was being broken to Leela. And it wasn't bad.
Another one of those glorious moments you get in NICU when things turn out to not be as horrible as they possibly could be. Willow did not have any infection in her brain; in fact this Strep B bug was probably just on the skin as the needle was going in to take some blood for the initial test.
Our daughter was looking much better today, so the cocktail of antibiotics she is taking appear to be doing their job and killing anything nasty. She was looking as lovely as usual, completely oblivious to all this fuss going on around her. Back in the nursery, her brother had another good day. He appears to be free of any infections, and spent most of the day sprawled out in the big double cot.
Just another family Saturday together then. Could do with a more normal one soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment