Oops - Possible Peritonitis

Yesterday (12/28/2013) had some great moments. Our friends invited us to the park to ride bikes and have a cookout. Evie also met the miracle makers who are members of her COTA For Evie W fundraising campaign team for the first time.

Yesterday also contained a mistake nearly one year in the making. Evie has been forbidden to swim in untreated water (lake, pond, river), she's also not allowed to get in a water balloon fight, or to take a bath.  This is all because of her peritoneal dialysis catheter which was surgically placed last January. The area of her abdomen where the peritoneal dialysis catheter exits her skin is meticulously cared for as we follow a specific procedure to change the dressing that covers it each day. Her only options water-wise are to take a quick shower, and to swim in treated (chlorinated or brominated) water.

Heather and I had thought that these restrictions had been discussed quite thoroughly throughout 2013, but yesterday proved us wrong.  Evie showered like she always does, with a minor exception - she put the stopper in the drain of the bathtub, and when she was finished washing her hair and showering herself, she sat down into the dirty water.

Heather discovered Evie with her catheter site fully submerged in the water. Our best estimate is that she had been that way for a few minutes. When the incredulous question was asked, "What are you doing?" Evie indicated that she was holding the end of her catheter out of the water, so everything was fine.

We told her a bit too adamantly that it was _not_ fine.

Long story short, Evie was re-admitted to the hospital as she is at high-risk for peritonitis. Her doctor is doing all that she can to help Evie avoid a full-blown peritonitis infection as it would cause two problems:

1. She would not be considered healthy enough for transplant.
2. If the infection were severe enough, she would not be able to do peritoneal dialysis, but rather would have to do hemodialysis (which would mean she'd have to be here at the hospital during the day three days a week for four hours each time (and three hours of driving round trip).

So far Evie has spent her time reading Harry Potter, and enjoying the Disney channel. Evie has had an IV placed (which was a much more pleasant experience than two weeks ago when she was last here.) She's receiving two antibiotics (Ceftazidime and Cefazolin) intravenously, and is in good spirits while we sit and wait for results on the labwork (they've drawn blood, and are testing her dialysate).  Her dialysate looked clear when they drew it out, so that is a good sign. Overnight she had an extended course of dialysis to filter out everything possible.



Since we have approached this so aggressively, we hopefully have avoided both problems listed above, but Evie does not exactly have a track record of good luck when it comes to health issues, so your prayers on her behalf are much appreciated.