Disappointing Results 

We got Hana’s adenovirus results back and they were both higher this week than ever before, in the 30,000’s. This was very troubling to us and I started to feel like maybe things were careening out of control. But I kept reminding myself that Hana seems much better, so that should count for a lot. Still, it was a bit stressful.

They’ve been playing with Hana’s feeds schedule since she’s been sleeping so poorly at night and I always felt she did better not getting continuous feeds overnight. When Hana sleeps poorly, I sleep poorly. The GI doctors said Hana’s digestive system is more mature so she may be able to handle things that she didn’t handle well before. So we’ll see, but I still think Hana needs gut rest at night when she’s sleeping, that’s when humans are supposed to get gut rest. 

Other than her half Pedialyte, half formula feeds Hana has been eating more foods. Toast, rice, noodles, carrots and crackers. Apparently pancakes do not qualify as conforming to a lactose-restricted diet so I’m not allowed to order them, despite getting the GI doctor’s approved. Today Hana had NO diarrhea for the first time in weeks. She still has tons of bloating and gas and her heart rate and respiration rate have been quite elevated. I’m hoping that she is truly on the mend.

Now, getting back to the adenovirus results, the resident had already spoken for the Infectious Disease doctors about Hana’s results. They said ‘they have seen this before’ and ‘let us know if her results are still not going down after next weeks results’. So, they don’t sound concerned. They are the experts so I’m giving them a bit more time to prove themselves. They also said there is some lag time between when a patient’s symptoms lessen and when the test results reflect this and the most important thing is that she is starting to feel better. Now, this makes more sense to me. Lastly, as it was explained to me about the test results numbers, the increase from the last test result of 15,000 to 30,000 is not significant. It may sound like a lot but it isn’t and there is margin of error too. If her results went from 15,000 to 250,000 then that would be significant. This made me feel much better. Of course, I’d like the results to be ZERO. We want to get out of here! The hospital has been a madhouse lately.

Now we NEED to get some rest!