Life as a Leach

I've determined that Abby's pancreas is a drama queen, just like her.  As I've mentioned, Abby had what we thought was the stomach bug. When she just kept throwing up everything (even 6 hours after drinking it) with absolutely no other symptoms (she's a wild child!), we thought there might be more to it.  Our GI said to keep in touch if it didn't get better, so I sent her an email over the weekend.  She ordered blood work, which came back today as elevated liver functioning.  Of the two enzymes that point directly to pancreatitis, one is actually below normal and the other is a slow test that hasn't come back yet.  So... Abby's going to have an ultrasound tomorrow to check for gall stones.  Tonight, I put her on just pedialyte.  I started at a very slow rate and am increasing by 5 ml/hour each hour until I get to 50 ml/hour.  (It's gonna be a long night!)  If she doesn't tolerate that, then we are to head to the ER in the morning with the e...

As predicted, my girl's days have been very busy this week!  Yesterday, she had OT with one of our favorite therapists, who has a little girl just Abby's age.  He's so much fun and Abby adores him.  Today, she had PT and speech and had lots of fun doing those too.  The therapists do a great job of making it as fun as possible. Abby also got to spend several hours playing with the therapy dogs, Yuba and Katie Bell.  She was the only one in the playroom for most of the time, so she was ecstatic to have the dogs all to herself!  She played doctor, threw toys, brushed them, and gave them lots of hugs. The girl loves her some doggies!! Eating has been going very well and her chewing looks fantastic!  She was a bit more uncooperative in general today, so she didn't eat quite as much, but that was just her mood.  We are taking the opportunity to try new foods while she has all of this interest in eating!  I keep track of every single thing she eats,...

I'm at RMH tonight to get some sleep for a change!  Abby has been extremely needy and I've been basically running on coffee.  While I hate leaving her (she was bawling!) :(, this is the last night Matt will be able to be there for a while.  It was a good opportunity for me to rest and recharge. Medically, Abby is doing well today.  Plastics is pleased with how the scars look, so their job is pretty much done.  The peds team is following her very closely.  We usually have multiple visits from them each day, which makes me feel like they really care about her!  Her concerning enzyme levels have decreased slightly, so at least they are heading in the right direction. The thing we are learning about pancreatitis is that if you try to push someone too fast, you can have another attack.  There's already a good chance that Abby will have future flare-ups of pancreatitis, so we don't want to push her past her limit.  Therefore, every increase wil...