Infection

Ahhh....... It's crazy how quickly things can change. On Wednesday July 8th DeDe came home from work and her mom had told her that Avery was quite cranky that day. It was the first day in the past few that Avery needed Tylenol for the pain. DeDe got her ready for bed that night and realized that something had changed. Her back was quite swollen...in fact at first DeDe thought that it was the bandage on her back, forgetting that the dressing had already been removed. She started looking at it more closely and noticed that it was not only very swollen but it was starting to get hot to the touch. Avery would wince even when she would touch the area. We had a neighbor who is a RN look at it and he thought that it looked okay to him. DeDe just felt that something was not right. I came home from school and by the time I got there it was even more red and swollen. Avery was now running a fever and was hurting. We called Primary Children's and they instructed us to bring her in. We were getting ready to take her in when the Hospital called us back and said our Surgeon would meet us as the Hospital even though he was scheduled to be off. When we got there it was a matter of minutes and they had seen her. The Doctor began to push on the area of her back with the drain and yellow puss came out around the drain site...and that was it, we were being admitted to the Hospital to try to fight this infection. We have never seen Avery like this. When she wasn't screaming she was clinging to us so tight that we had to pry her off of us just to have her looked at. They immediately started an IV and began giving her antibiotics. At that time they didn't know what was going on or what they were going to have to do. They talked to us about running several doses of meds every 8 hours, and the possibility of having to re-open her surgery site and cleaning it out. Avery was a very sick little girl. I think DeDe and I cried every bit as much as she did. We were all scared. On July 10th Avery was responding to the meds, the drain tube was removed and she was improving. Her blood work was getting better, and the option of having it re-opened was no longer there. Now it was a matter of would we come home with a Pic line and continue receiving at home IV therapy with home health or would we get to come home and continue with oral antibiotics. At 2:30 in the afternoon we got the go ahead to come home. They were happy with the way she was responding to the meds, and they had pin pointed the type of infection. Avery had developed a staff infection, but we had caught it in time. We came home exhausted, overwhelmed but happy to be headed home with oral meds and no more tubes.

Avery's surgery

When Avery was about 3 weeks old we noticed a small lump on her back, right under her shoulder blade. We showed it to her pediatrician and he said it was a cyst and we should just watch it for awhile. When she was 11 months old we were getting her out of the tub and realized it was a lot bigger than normal, when we started poking at it we felt a hard lump in it. We took her to the Doctor within a couple of days and he sent us to see a surgeon. Two weeks later we headed to Primary Children's Hospital to meet a surgeon. That's when we decided to have it removed. What they found was called a Lymphatic Vascular Malformation. Basically the area on her back didn't develop correctly and it had produced a small tumor that needed to be removed because it was growing, and the larger it grew the more difficult the surgery would be. The surgery was scheduled for July 1st... Everything went well, the Dr. was able to remove all of it and the biopsy came back perfect. The area produced a lot of lymphatic fluids that needed to be drained to try to help avoid infection, that is why the drain tube was placed in her back. Avery bounced back quickly following surgery and just when we thought we were almost out of the woods... on Wednesday July 8th two days before the tube was scheduled to be removed Avery's body got an infection.

Avery's 1st birthday

Avery's birthday was so much fun! We celebrated all weekend. It was the same weekend as Art City Days in Springville, so we were in the childrens parade, went to the carnival, watched the fireworks, and had a birthday party. It was a very busy weekend and we decided from now on we would go somewhere for birthdays. That way someone else does the set up and clean up and we just show up to have fun!