April 26, 2010

Gabrielle is doing great from the surgeries. Having the epidural placed to control the pain was a great thing to do for her. Since the surgery she only had 4 extra doses of pain medicine and all of those were on Friday. Since then she has not appeared to be in any pain as a result of the surgery. They plan to start transitioning her from the epidural to other pain medications today and to remove the epidural on Tuesday. Her incisions are healing and the G-Tube is working and has bee running almost continuously since Friday afternoon.

Gabrielle has had some GI related issues that we were assuming were related to the excessive amount of feedings she is getting. The orders have been to feed her 1-1/2 ounces per hour through her feeding tube continuously around the clock. However, Gabrielle cannot handle that at this time so we have been having to turn the feeding pump off to allow time for her stomach to empty. We are having to be careful not to over fill her because that causes her to have dry heaves because she cannot throw-up anymore. Since she cannot throw-up there is only one possible way for stuff to come out and needless to say she has been going through a lot of diapers.

The doctors did decide to run some test on her stools. They found Clostridium difficile, also called C. difficile or "C. diff." It is a bacterium that can cause symptoms ranging from diarrhea to life-threatening inflammation of the colon. This bacteria cause illnesses that typically occurs after use of antibiotic medications. Basically what happens it there are good and bad bacteria in the intestines some antibiotics kill the good bacteria which allow the bad bacteria to thrive. Typically when the good bacteria are present then they are about to suppress or kill out the C. Diff bacteria. Last night Gabrielle was placed on another antibiotic which will target the C. Diff bacteria and give the good bacteria a chance to replenish. Another thing that can be done is to add probiotics to her diet, but we have to talk with the doctors and nutritionist about this.

Ashley and I thank you for all the prayers and the continued prayers.

In Christ,
Jeff, Ashley, and Gabrielle