A Trip To The ICU

Just a couple days ago my friend Mathis observed my life for 18 hours and commented, “You seem to shift from highs to lows much more quickly than the rest of us.” I think he saw a little glimpse of why we have to adapt to changes and keep moving forward instead of flipping out when things don’t go as planned. Yesterday was no exception. At 9:00 a.m. we talked to Dr Adam Lamble about her nerve pain and thought maybe she could leave the hospital by late afternoon. I packed up the suitcases and took a few things to the car. By 1:30 p.m. we talked to Adam again and decided to stay another day to try and get the pain level down a bit more. Aside from pain, she also had a low grade fever near 99.5 F throughout the afternoon which is completely medically acceptable but in my mind also completely unlike her. At 11:30 p.m., as we were getting settled in bed, her fever suddenly spiked to over 103 F. The nurses were extremely quick to respond by drawing blood cultures to check for infection and started antibiotics.  At midnight her blood pressure started to drop slightly. I casually mentioned to the nurse that there had been several times in the past where Ashtyn needed to go to the intensive care unit for norepinephrine for extremely low blood pressures. The nurse listened to me and took it very seriously.  Soon a doctor was at the bedside and ordered one liter of IV fluid to be given as fast as possible. After the liter was given, her blood pressure was even lower. The rapid response team was called from the ICU to evaluate her. After 3 liters of fluid her blood pressure continued to be too low. Norepinephrine was started and she was transferred to the ICU. It is now 5:00 am.. Her blood pressure has stabilized. I suspect it won't be long before she doesn't need norepinephrine and will be able to go back to the cancer floor. She is now on three different IV antibiotics, vancomycin, gentamicin, and ceftazidime while we wait to find out if there's an infection in her blood. I’m so grateful we did not leave the hospital.