home again back again...

Tuesday afternoon we went home from the hospital.  Ellie was doing so well we were confident she could go to school on Wednesday. 

Wednesday morning when I woke up, I found Ellie trying to stand herself up in her room.  She was extremely unsteady and her arms were flailing, she just did not seem to have the strength to get herself up.  She scooted herself downstairs.  She was cognitively slow and a bit incoherent.  Ellie had not slept in 2 days so I sort of attributed her weakness and instability and cognitive misfires to extreme sleepiness.  We decided to go get labs just to check her levels.  When we arrived at the hospital, Ellie became unresponsive.  I told the receptionist that I thought we needed to talk with one of our doctors, I wasn't sure which one.  I knew this was a neurology issue, but I also knew that neurology is the most difficult department to get ahold of as there seem to be less neurologists here than our other subspecialities.  Our oncologist came to the rescue.  They set us up in a room and secured diapers for a quite stinky Lotta.  They started to check her vitals and were unable to get either a temperature or a blood pressure reading.  Finally they were able to get a reading on her temperature at 83 degrees.  Her heart rate was around 40, sometimes falling below that.  Dr. Puccetti suggested we go to the PICU so that they could monitor her more closely.  Ellie was extremely sad about being back in the hospital.  Once we arrived in the PICU, ellie was covered in a warming blanket, given a stress dose of steroids, and  started on an antibiotic (just in case).  An EKG and an EEG were both administered, neither one showed any problems.  Once we warmed Ellie up, her heart rate improved.  As I sat watching Ellie's heart rate oscillate between the mid 30s up to the 40s, with the apnea alarm sounding, I was completely amazed that her body was surviving all this. 

Today, Ellie is back to her regularly scheduled programming, talking up all the doctors and nurses and volunteers.  What a contrast from yesterday!  Rumor has it we may be going home tomorrow.