Cam had a pretty quiet day today as she had no procedures scheduled. The neurosurgery team stopped in early this morning and as of 12 hours post op none of the cultures had grown anything - which is somewhat disappointing in that it put us no closer to an answer as to why she continues to carry meningitis.
Later this morning, the oncology team stopped by and while they were here, someone from ID came in. They still had no answers and were talking about scheduling another gallium scan and a white-tag scan in which they take blood, tag the white cells with some identifier and then re-inject the blood prior to the scan to hopefully find where they are going to fight infection. Nothing was scheduled but they vowed to go back and think about what to do next.
A short time after that, neurosurgery stopped back in again and the cultures were ALL growing - EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM! This is GREAT news! It puts us much closer to an answer and hopefully means that they have located the source of the infection and by removing the foreign objects yesterday will prevent the meningitis from coming back or lingering (depending on how you look at it). While it might sound odd to be pleased that she was growing bacteria in her brain, you can imagine our relief that we know where it was coming from and appear to have removed it all.
Tomorrow, we will hopefully have an answer on the specific type of germ that was growing and a plan from ID as far as length and type of treatment. Most likely this will entail another round of IV antibiotics but we don't know for how long they will last or what type of medication she will be on. The final results of the cultures will be what determines that.
Thank you for all your prayers and positive thoughts! They are felt and appreciated!
With Love,
Greg, Robin, Caitlin, Caroline & Campbell
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