Back to the OR

Good news and bad news this morning.

The good news: Tess stopped puking last night at 11:00 and then ate a bit this morning at 7:30.

The bad news: Tess' inflammation markers have gone up again. Our information is changing by the minute, so I'll tell you what we know now and update you as we learn more.

The CRP (C-reactive protein) is the measure they use to tell if there is still inflammation and potential infection inside little Tess. Before they drained the abscess last weekend, Tess' CRP was at 20. It's slowly come down over the week to a low of 3 this past weekend. Today it climbed back to 8. This set off all sorts of warning bells with the medical staff.

Dr. Booker's belief is that there is some infection still lingering in Tess' hips. He also found Tess to be much more agitated when examining her hips this morning. They're still exploring if yesterday's stomach issues could cause the CRP to climb, but that's unlikely.

What now? Well, Tess gets another MRI early this afternoon and then into surgery again. Today's MRI will be compared to Saturday's MRI to see what has changed. If the fluid levels have stayed the same or increased, that would also be a specific sign (other than the CRP rising and her hip pain) that they need to get into those hips.

They're going to operate on Tess' left hip to clean out all the fluid they saw on Saturday's MRI. The fluid wasn't a concern on Saturday because Tess was doing so well (feeling great, looking great, CRP decreasing, etc), but now that the CRP has climbed again, that's one of the areas they can target. They'll also examine the right hip's fluid using a needle while she's in the OR. Then they may operate on that one, too.

While they have the hips open, they may also have time to clean out any random stuff that's preventing Tess' hips from getting into their joints. This is a secondary goal, but one they'd like to explore if they're already going to be in there. The end result could be Tess in a brace or Tess in a cast. So back to where we started 12 days ago! But Dr. Booker told us not to get excited about that. It'll just be something they consider while in the OR. He'll be in the OR with a very well known pediatric hip doctor (who we met in his office a couple months ago) and we feel very good about Tess hanging out with the both of them.

Denise and I have several questions to ask Dr. Booker when he stops back up to our room before the procedure. We'll share all of the info as soon as we know more. 

It's just all a tad bit overwhelming.