Quick Update

I’m exhausted, stressed, and staring at a pile of work I need to catch up on, but here’s a quick update from the last couple of days.

Miss Attitude had one episode of reflux during Tuesday’s Upper GI Series. That’s really not enough to tell them whether reflux is playing a part in her asthma/pneumonia troubles. The doc said, “Everyone will reflux occasionally, under some circumstances.” Miss Attitude refluxed (refluxed? Is that right?) when he had her lift her legs in the air. Otherwise, all was normal.

Yesterday’s bronchoscopy revealed an infection in her lung. To quote her pulmonologist, “It was just pouring out pus.” (Oh, sorry. I should’ve warned you about that one. Hope you weren’t eating lunch or anything.) The doc said, when he started the bronchoscopy, he “just went right to it [the infection]. I just followed the trail of pus.” (Um. Yeah. Sorry again.)

Anyway. Apparently, this infection in her lung may be why Miss Attitude keeps getting pneumonia. When she has an asthma flare-up, it aggravates the infection, which pours fluid into her lungs, which ends in pneumonia (or something like that….medical jargon, you know). The antibiotics she’s been on for pneumonia have cleared up the pneumonia, but not the infection. So the infection remains; and when she has another asthma flare-up, the cycle begins again.

Doc is putting her on a high-powered antibiotic, which he says, “kills just about any respiratory pathogen the devil ever dreamed up.”

He also took a sample of fluid from her lungs so they can culture it and make darn sure that the offending bacteria, when assaulted by this antibiotic, will indeed die a horrid and painful death. While they’re at it, they’ll test it to check for reflux, too. Sounds thorough to me, I guess.

So. We were happy to be home last night, though we were all completely and utterly worn-out. All except for The Drama Queen, of course, who was wound up like an eight-day clock. Sigh.

Thank you all SO, SO MUCH for your prayers and well-wishes. It was truly comforting, while we were waiting, to know that there were so many warm, fuzzy thoughts coming our way. Thank you, thank you, thank you.