September 8, 2011

3 months, 3 days since diagnosis
day #3 of current hospital stay
days until transplant - unknown

Today was really rough. It was confirmed this morning - Riker indeed has a staph infection and her central line, if not the cause, is infected. The doctors are very clear that the surprise is not that she got an infection at this point but that the infection took so long. It doesn't mean I'm not very disappointed.

They decided to get her in right away to have the line removed and scheduled her for 5pm to go into surgery. This means no food after her 11am feeding. 6 month olds do not like being denied their bottle. Riker cried nearly all day except when she was so exhausted that she couldn't stay awake any longer. She only fell asleep for brief periods of time. To add to the stress, her surgery kept getting pushed out. She ended up not getting in until nearly 8:30.

For now, Riker is resting comfortably. The surgery went fine and her line is out. The next few days will be very rough, though. In lieu of the central line, Riker now has IVs placed in both of her hands. This means she has huge splits on both of her arms and can barely move them. She certainly cannot pick things up or put her hands in her mouth. I have no idea how she's going to tolerate that until at least Monday when they can place a new line.

At this point, rest is in order. I believe we have a few long days ahead of us before this ordeal is behind us and we can move on to the next step.