It was a party in my room today!!!!!

My Hip Cousins 🙂

Fresh air for the first time in two weeks! I was so overwhelmed I took a nap 🙂

Cooper is four years old and the nephew of my friend Bree. Bree called her sister (Cooper’s Mom) Saturday morning and ended up talking to Cooper….and then Bree and Cooper ended up talking about Samantha.

Cooper was very worried about Samantha being in the hospital and wanted to give her something. He only had two pennies. Luckily his Auntie Bree was throwing a jewerly party that night and Bree just happened to have a beautiful bracelet on a special Cooper clearance….. the braclet cost just two precious pennies. Cooper also thought that Samantha would like something with frogs…..Samantha is now wearing her beautiful pink bling braclet with princess frogs wearing golden crowns.

I have met Cooper once and I adore him. I adore you Cooper!

The complete story is on Bree’s blog which is below:

http://dew2be.blogspot.com/2008/11/she-likes-frogs-right.html

I am always touched by the kindess of others….especially the simple beauty that comes from these kiddos. Thank you Cooper.

Speaking of the kindness of others, our friend Pat brought us yummy stir fried shrimp and rice last night.

Thanks for dinner Pat!

And thanks to everyone for the cookies, the jam, the Wahoo’s, the coffees, the visits and the notes. The hospital can be a rotten, nasty place and it’s always wonderful to see familiar faces. We love, love, love you all.

We’re hoping for a hospital discharge by lunchtime. Keep your fingers crossed!

Love,
Us

We have good friends who have been wonderful to us during our (many) times of need.

The last time we were in the hospital for an extended period, our friend Susan whipped up a dinner of pork roast, roasted root veggies, gnocci and gave it to Bart to bring down to the hospital…..mmmmmmmm gnocci. This time Susan gave Bart yummy homemade chili. MMMMMMMM….chili.

To sweeten the deal, Susan’s husband works for New Belgian. A local brewery that makes fabulous beer mmmmmmmm……beer….. Susan brought Bart a six pack of wheat beer to go along with our tasty chili. YUMMMMMEERRRRSSS!!! Hurry Bart! Get to Denver with the chili and beer!!!

The beer was placed in the community frig until it was time to head down. At 5:00 Bart went to collect our goodies. Much to his dismay…….our fabulous chilled beer was gone….stolen out of the refrigerator….gone….I am now very sad.

So, Mr. Beer Stealer….you have THREE bad karma strikes against you!

1. You stole our beer
2. You stole our GOOD beer
3. I don’t use this one very often but I’m going to! You stole beer from parents of child who is in the HOSPITAL!!! FIE! FIE! FIE Mr. Beer Stealer! 3 bad karma strikes!

Okay, I’m done. Otherwise we’re doing well. Samantha’s nasty ear is drying up and we’re working on a discharge plan. Keep your fingers crossed!

Love,
Us

Jack and Ella drew me a Get Well Picture!

First you have to eat cookies for drawing energy.

I hope to copy Ella’s fashion sense someday.

That’s a good looking train Mr. Jack. Just as long as it’s a choo choo outta here….

Mommy is a little stir crazy in the hospital so guess who suffers? ME! She thought we should have a Halloween fashion shoot.

Really Mom?

Where is my father??? Daddy! Come save me from this crazy lady!

Yes, I know I’m cute.

What do you mean I can’t have chocolate????

No more pictures until you put the hat on too, Mom!

No….smile pretty

Well, that’s a little better.

That’s my wheel…..and yes by being so squeeky, we did get a little greese. I burned my Polyanna pants yesterday and decided no more nice Mom. I am pleased to say it got some results!

As a compromise between staying a med course that wasn’t working and doing evasive ear surgery, we decided to culture her ear once again and see what else grew. Staph grew immediately, which we knew about but we’re waiting to see what other nasties are in there and then probably add another antibiotic.

Infectious Disease is now leading treatment direction which I feel very good about. Our head doc, Dr. Todd discovered the relationship between tampons and toxic shock syndrome back in the day. He’s responsible for that little warning on the side of every box (I apologize to my male audience for bringing up the ‘T’ word). So, I feel like we have the smarties on the team.

Other good news, Samantha’s triglyceride count was 10,000 yesterday….yes 10,000. People were lining up to pull her off the ketogenic diet. I asked to have it re-run and it’s 1,600. Yes, I know, screamin’ artery-hardening high but actually acceptable for such a high-fat diet.

That’s all the news. No word on when were going home. I raised such a stink about being discharged with a sick child that I’m afraid to ask when we can leave. HA!

Love to you all-
Heather and the gang

Day eight in the hospital hasn’t brought us any closer to a resolution….we thought it did but the last 24 hours have been a little trying, to say the least.

We were scheduled to go home today. I was a little aprehensive. IV meds have not decreased the infection, we switched to an oral antibiotic and Samantha was still having seizures. I am such a Nervous Nellie! (sarcasm intended). But, they thought we could handle it.

Samantha, in her wonderful way of telling us what she needs, continued to have seizures and a bad night last night. She is now running a slight fever and was clearly in pain until we gave her a dose of Ativan. Yep, we’re here for the night. Apparently Samantha didn’t feel comfortable going home either.

We are also dealing with the fact that 8 days of Vancomyacin (sp) has not cleared up her ear. The doctors are now considering surgery; going in and scraping the infection out of her canal. This is a 2-2 1/2 hour procedure that everyone is a little nervous about considering Samantha’s condition.

Our nerves are a little frayed. We just want this nasty infection gone….gone, gone, gone. I’ll continue to keep you updated.

Please keep little Sammers in your thoughts and prayers.

Love,
Heather, Bart and Samantha

What does Tom Brady of the New England Patriots and Samantha Schichtel of Loveland, Colorado have in common?

They both have MRSA. And we think they both contracted it from a hospital procedure. Tom from his knee, Samantha from her ear tubes. It’s pretty serious stuff. I guess now in the US, more people die from MRSA than from AIDS and if uber-athlete Tom Brady can get it….

So we’re treating a super-infection with super antibiotics. She has been on IV meds for a week and we will switch to oral meds tonight. The biggest issue is that the drainage in her ear isn’t going away so we’re still fighting something in there. We will continue to follow up with the Ear, Nose and Throat docs.

The big news is that we are scheduled to GO HOME TOMORROW!!!! Keep your fingers crossed. I’ll let you all know how the next 24 hours go.

Thank you for all of the well-wishes and good thoughts.

Love,
Heather, Bart and Samantha

Samantha now has a PICC line. It’s a catheter that runs up to the entrance of her superior vena cava down her arm and out like the tip of an IV line. When your getting a lot of IV meds and blood draws, it kind of makes sense. They can just come up to the line and put in or pull out what they need. Her little veins were dry and the bottom of her feet have been ravaged due to pokes. It’s unnerving to think that that this line runs all the way up to her heart….CRAZY! Since we have the line in, the specialist have made a ‘wish-list’ of the blood tests that need to be run while were here. I’m going to buy a bunch of vampire fangs and start handing them out.

Each day is getting better. We usually have a couple periods of high temps and agitation but nothing too long. Everything is kind of on hold for the weekend and we will reconvene with the specialists on Monday.

Bart came down last night and we are spending a lovely weekend together as a family on the 8th floor. I’m catching up on my Disney flicks.

Hope you all are well!

Us

So, when you’ve spent WEEKS in Children’s, you learn the ins and outs. You learn that it really is ok to question the docs, disagree with protocol and push back.

I’ve been pushing back.

Nothing extreme….I’ve insisted we get Infectious Disease involved. I make lists and ask for follow up…we’re running the business of getting Samantha well. Yesterday however, one of the I.D. residents mentioned to the nurse that she was afraid to talk to me about a delayed meeting for fear she would get yelled at.Yelled at?!! I’m not a yeller…a little short perhaps….it’s all about the business of Samantha 🙂

Speaking of, we are now on the 8th floor; out of the ICU. YAY! They are thinking Samantha had a super-infection behind her ear. She also tested positive for MRSA which is a nasty staph infection. All is being treated with a super-dose of anti-biotics. We will be here at least through Monday.

Samantha is resting well. She’s pretty worn out from days of high fever and intense pain. We both slept well last night!

Thank you again for all the well-wishes, thoughts and prayers. We love you guys 🙂