Day +103--What the heck?

For the last several weeks we've been moving right along, for the most part our clinic appointments were short and sweet, we were even discussing going home next week. Over the last week I think we've hit some road bumps and they're throwing us for a loop. We made unscheduled and unanticipated trips up to the clinic this past Friday and again on Sunday. Today's visit was expected but didn't really go as planned. After her IV dose of anti-nausea medicine last night Olivia felt much better, she was back to playing and laughing. They gave me a prescription for the same anti-nausea medicine at home but by the time we left last night I decided not to get it filled. Olivia wouldn't have been able to have another dose until 4 am and since I knew she'd be asleep then it didn't make much sense to have it filled. I took Olivia into clinic first thing this morning. The good news is that her breathing issues seem to be resolved. She is responding very well to the breathing treatments and her lungs sound completely clear! Her white blood count is down significantly and is back in normal range. She's not dehydrated and her blood chemisries look great. Olivia was still nauseous this morning and was vomiting this morning before I was able to get a dose of anti-nausea medicine into her. Based on our conversations about Olivia's symptoms they suspect that she might have C. diff. From what I understand C. diff is a bacterial infection in your colon and large intestine. These good bacteria are normally present but can be wiped out by antibiotics. Since Olivia is on so many antibiotics it is a reasonable possibility that these antibiotics (while treating the infection in other areas of her body) have wiped out the good bacteria that she needs to keep things working smoothly in her colon. Olivia went to the potty and provided a fabulous stool sample for them to test and hopefully we'll know in another 24 hours or so if we really are dealing with C. diff. If it is C. diff then we would need to have another discussion about treatment options. C. diff can be treated with an antibiotic but that would mean adding another antibiotic to Olivia's growing list of meds. Since Olivia is scheduled to stop her 2 big antibiotics this week we could also wait and see if things resolve themselves when she stops those meds. If the C. diff test is negative then there are a few other possibilities.....the lactaid milk, nausea from her other meds, salmonella. Another possibility is Graft vs. Host disease of the gut. Mike and I are terrified about the possibility of GVH. Olivia seems to have been doing so well! We're reminding ourselves tonight that what is meant to happen will happen and it's not in our hands. Please keep Olivia in your thoughts and prayers tonight.

On another note we'd like to ask that you keep our friend Rachel in your prayers. Rachel is just a year older than Olivia and she became one of our friends when we were up on 5200. Rachel is having a really rough time (and has been for several weeks now). To read more about Rachel's story please visit her website here: http://www.cotaforrachels.com/blog