A good day today Kirra was sleepy all day, her white blood cell count has risen to 2800. Her CSF is a yellow colour due to the high count. It should be a watery "gin" type colour.
Day 14 Two cannulars pack up.
Kirra's looking well. The IV cannular in Kirra's right hand packed in (her hand has become all swollen and puffy), another cannular was put in her left hand. This also failed at
midnight, by the time a doctor had put yet another one in her right foot Kirra had missed her midnight drugs. The count on her white blood cells was now 8000. This was put down to an error and another sample was taken.
Day 15 & 16 All ok.
Everything looks good today, white blood cells down to 1500. Kirra's lost 0.7 kgs. The dietician put her on a high calorie diet. She has to have a tube put down her nose and into her stomach in the
hope she can be fed through the tube and not vomit it back up. The night ends well. Kirra was a bit restless and was given some Codeine (pain killer). She looked very good in the morning and Mr. Richards Clamped her Lumber Drain off at 8.30am. She had a bed bath and the cannula was moved to her
left hand again. About 10.30am her nose tube came out and she vomited after eating. There's no sign of pressure building up and her wound is still dry.
Day 17 Lumber Drain Removed.
Everything is looking good. Her nose tube is back in place, Kirra's a bit miserable and needed some more pain killers. About 4.05pm Kirra went down to theatre for the fourth time. Fortunately this
was just to have her Lumber Drain removed. All went well and she was back after an hour. A long line was also put in her femoral vein (Right inner thigh) this is to inject her antibiotics into as she was running out of places to put a
cannula. She will now need three weeks treatment with Cefotaxime to kill the bugs causing her Meningitis. Kirra vomited up her Nose line, quite scary seeing this line going down her nose and then hanging out of her mouth. After it was
removed, Paula asked for it not to be used, she was being sick with or without the nose line and it was quite distressing having it put in.
Day 18-20.
All's good, Kirra's still being sick, but is acting more like her normal self. She has totally lost all sense of balance and her coordination is very poor. It could take over three months before we
know if she will learn to walk again, but for now we'd just like to see her crawl. Everything else seems to be as it was before the operation.
Day 21-23 Being Transferred back to Swindon.
After three weeks in oxford Kirra has improved enough to be transferred back to Swindon's Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH). We offered to take Kirra to Swindon ourselves, but the Doctors did not
want to take any risks with her femoral line. At 2.40 pm an ambulance took Kirra to PMH. Arriving at 3.45 Kirra settled down well. The next day Kirra was still doing fine, she was a little bit sick ( first time in two days.) As Kirra was doing so well the cannula was removed from her hand. We discussed giving her the drugs ourselves at home, and
at 6pm I was being shown how to administer her drugs. She needs a cefotaxime injection every 6 hours and an Ondansetron injection every 12 hours. The following day I prepared and injected her 12pm dose and 6pm dose, after which we finally
got to take her home on Thursday the 15th October which just happens to be my birthday. Taking Kirra home was the best present I could have had.