Day 46: Fever, Food and Morphine

John woke up this morning early, shaking all over so much that his teeth were chattering because his temperature was spiking so fast. He went from normal to 38.6 in about a half-hour. Pretty scary stuff. We still don't know what caused the fever but it came back down to normal and hasn't spiked again through the day. Actually this afternoon he was sitting up, supported, and playing and laughing and having a good time. They have put him back on Zosyn, Fluconazol and added Vancomycin and will continue them at least until they know what caused the fever, but for now things look to be under control.

His formula feeds started last night at 10ml/hour of 15 cal/oz Neocate, and was upped to 20ml/hour today, so that is going well. The news on the upper GI is that it wasn't followed long enough to see the contrast get into his pelvis, but it seemed to be flowing well, if slow, and since he's pooping they don't know if they will need any further tests, if they do it will be another barium enema, but I'm hoping it's not needed. He's still puking a bit, and needing to have his g-tube vented now and again but today they decided that he can eat and drink as he wishes so long as we can control the puking. He has eaten a few bites and once he was just handed his cup and allowed to drink all that he wanted he didn't want that much.

The morphine came late this afternoon after his Right JP Drain, the wound drain was pulled. We will certainly be giving him the morphine before the next one comes out. The drain itself is like six or so inches long and as big around as a McDonald's straw and was curled between the skin and the alloderm that they put in. When it came out it hurt and the poor kid screamed and screamed and screamed until the morphine started kicking in. Even tonight his side is still sore and they tell me that it will take a couple days before the tenderness is gone. We're going to be giving him his Loritab through the night and hoping that by tomorrow he won't be needing it as often but I'm all for letting him have it until the pain of this goes away.