Day + 51: Back in Hospital

We had our first trip to the emergency department this week with Ellie spiking a fever on Wednesday evening. She had a clinic appointment that day, and they accessed her central line to take bloods per usual. The thought is that some bacteria was introduced into her line at that time, which caused her fever just a few hours later.
 
Ellie spiked an unusually high temp which reached 40C very quickly. The team believe it is likely a gram-negative bacterium due to the high temp. Once in emergency, Ellie was administered Cefepime and Gentamycin antibiotics immediately while blood cultures were taken. We’re lucky to live so close to the hospital as we’re required to get her to the ED within 30 mins of spiking a temp. Once at the ED, we flash the ‘gold card’ which gives the triage nurse specific instructions to immediately admit her and commence Cefepime as soon as possible. It’s a pretty efficient process so there’s no waiting around in the same room as other sick kids. We remained in an isolation room in emergency for about 24hrs until an isolation room became available on the paediatric oncology ward.
 
Since being admitted, Ellie’s blood cultures haven’t grown any bacteria so we may not know what the cause of her temp was. It’s possible to have a situational temperature which isn’t caused by anything specific however, due to the very high temp, this is unlikely. It could have been a small amount of bacteria which was quickly cleared by the antibiotics and therefore hasn’t appeared on the cultures. This would be ideal as it means Ellie should be released soon. If her cultures are positive, then she will be committed to a 7-10 day course of antibiotics, and would have to stay in hospital likely for around 2 weeks. However, if her cultures are negative, then after around 5 days she could be released providing she doesn’t have any more temperatures and is otherwise stable. We are therefore hoping she can be released as early as Monday or Tuesday.
 
Aside from this minor setback, Ellie has been progressing well. We can notice the positive effect being at home has on her emotional state and she appears to be getting some of her strength back from moving around the house and playing with Chewie.
 
Fingers crossed we’ll be home again soon.
 
PC