After three nights and four days in the hospital I’m pretty zonked but the upshot is that Ella seems to be feeling better. She is still having some seizures but they are less frequent and more subtle. In addition, after four days of not a single smile or interaction she is slowly returning to her self. She looks at us again, has smiled twice today (!) and she is always turned towards her big cheek side — not a desirable phenomena but at least her old self. She has been getting antibiotics for her ear infection that also treat her arm infection which resulted from the IV gone bad. The last few days have been a slew of doctors, nurses and medical equipment, blinking lights and ringing bells.
I’ve resigned myself to spending alot of time here at Children’s. I’ve found the library where I get some studying in and also the Family Center with computers, internet access and magazines. Life in the hospital is not all bad and I’d much rather have her under observation during seizures than at home. Hospital food could be better but they have pretty good chicken fajitas on the menu. Ella had an ultrasound today. Etan took her to radiology for that. It took about 3 hours. I took her down this morning for the MRI (second time). They wanted to sedate her and as they were getting her ready, after taking off all her sensors and monitor conections, they looked into her mouth and ruled the test out without full anesthesia because of the irregular shape of her mouth and the danger of an obstruction if there are any breathing problems while she is sedated. By the time they decided this Ella was very hungry because I couldn’t nurse her for four hours leading us to this and because they had handled, poked and prodded her. She had a seizure just then. But she has had a much better day than yesterday and that is encouraging. She is nursing strongly and sleeping quietly from time to time.