A first time for everything

Good morning everyone! I know I was supposed to type this last night but wellll that didn’t happen. So Gabby’s official diagnosis is Pyelonephritis, fancy word for kidney infection. Before this she has always had a standard bladder infection. This is our first time being hospitalized and it not be for a surgery. This also her first time with a kidney infection. Bart and I think we have figured out a timeline of how everything happened. Mar 8- follow up with Dr. Volk for her spinal surgery, fever was discovered. He instructed us to see her pediatrician. That afternoon we saw Dr. West and Gabby was tested for viral panel including COVID and a urine sample was taken. Everything was negative but all signs were pointing to a UTI so we decided to culture the urine and start antibiotics that worked in the past. Mar 9-10- symptoms continue. Mar 11- cultures show no growth. Still running fever and having headaches. Mar 12- follow up with Dr. West before the weekend. Fever and headache persist. Decision made to finish antibiotic therapy. Mar 13-14- fever gradually climbs, headaches continue and she starts with being more tired each day. Mar 15- go to Woman’s and get renal ultrasound and bloodwork. Mar 16- symptoms persist. Mar 17- wakes up with 102 fever, her highest yet. Around 10am has a vomiting episode. We can’t get into pediatrician until 240pm so I call her urologist in Charleston. He makes the call for us to bring her to the ER. We decide to bring her Childrens in New Orleans so that Dr. Volk can be able to check her out also for any possible surgery complications. The ER doctor makes decision to test for full viral panel including COVID, blood work plus blood culture, urine sample plus urine culture, blood gas, EKG, and lung X-ray. Everything looks perfect except the urine sample. Gabby is admitted to the hospital and started on IV antibiotics called Zosyn. Mar 18-today- several rounds of Zosyn, fever is gone and the headache has become much less frequent. The attending physician just stopped by and said that the only culture that has grown is a type of staph. They are currently testing antibiotics for sensitivity and hopefully we should know what will treat it by this afternoon. Talking between ourselves and yesterday with Dr. West and texting some with her urologist, Dr.Alam this is what we think happened. Bacteria was somehow introduced to her bladder the week prior to March 8th. Due the cathing this can be very common. When we went to her follow up with Volk the fever was discovered as it had just started. When we went to Dr. West that afternoon, we were to fast, the bacteria was there but so new it wasn’t strong enough to grow cultures. Started antibiotics causing suppression but since it was the right antibiotic it didn’t kill the bug. Bacteria continues to grow bringing with it increased fever, headaches and her final symptom vomiting... the trifecta for UTI symptoms. It took just shy of 10 days to figure out what was wrong. It was no fault of anyone. Bart and I knew something was wrong and to keep pushing for the answer. Her pediatrician was doing everything in her power to help us find the answer. Labs are running behind due to being over run with COVID test so that kept delaying our local blood test results... each time it took 3-4 days to get results. The ER doctor took in everything we told her and ran with it. Gabby is definitely feeling better, just bored of being in the hospital. Thank you to everyone that has been praying for Gabrielle. You have all proven time and time again that prayer is the ultimate answer.

Headaches are such a pain!

Just a quick little update into the happenings lately with Gabrielle. We went last Thursday to New Orleans and she was put under for a quick sutcher removal. Dr. Volk said everything was looking and healing up great. She has been complaining of headaches off and on since the surgery was performed on 2/11. Gabby has never been one to complain of headaches unless she was having a bout of sinus/allergies. Saturday we got out of the house for a while and she did exert herself much more than she has in weeks. Saturday evening she said that her head hurt much worse than it had been. Saturday evening and all day Sunday she stayed with a headache even after alternate dosing of Tylenol and Advil and also adding in Dimetapp. She spent much of the day just laying around sleeping and watching tv. We went this morning and followed up with Dr. Volk, her neurosurgeon. When she was having her typical stuff done like weight, height, temp; it was found that she was running a fever of 100.4. She had not ran a fever over the weekend so this was a new symptom. Once we saw Dr. Volk, Bart and I expressed our concerns to him of the headaches being linked to a possible CSF (Cerebrospinal Spinal Fluid) leak. He explained to us that being she is just days away from being a month out of from surgery that he really doubts that she would develop a leak this late. He stated that her incision is healing beautifully. Dr. Volk said that usually at this period of healing if a CSF leak occurs there will be a pocket of fluid that develops on the incision line. Currently, there is no such area. He suggested that we follow up with her pediatrician due to the fever and headaches. Before we even left his office I called Dr. West to get an appointment for Gabby this afternoon. Our next suspected cause of the headache and fever was a bladder infection. Gabby's usual symptoms for bladder infection are fever, headache and nausea. Bart brought her and they drew a urine sample which currently is not showing any sign of infection. We have decided to culture the sample but go ahead and start antibiotics until we receive the culture results back on Wednesday afternoon. In addition to the urine culture, Dr. West also suggested doing a viral panel swab to test her for all of the kinds of flu, RSV and other common viruses. Hopefully, by Wednesday evening we will have some answers as to why our sweet girl is having these headaches. We will update once we have some answers.

Some good news is that she can go back to school in person once we figure out what is going on and her fever is gone! She is so excited to be back at school with her friends!