Leah Update

Hi Everyone. I can't believe she is still here, but she is. After a lot of complaining, a pulmonologist was finally in to see Leah today. Tehe doctor isn't sure exactly what's going on, but Leah is reacting in a way that is consistent with asthma so that is how she will approach the treatment for now. First, her prednisone dose will be given at the same time everyday, and she will receive albuterol treatments every six hours (instead of randomly) and this will be topped off by scheduled chest physical therapy (thumping on her chest with a cupped hand to loosen the mucus in her chest). Next, she is adding a reflux medication to her treatment since reflux can cause coughing and aspiration of stomach contents. That would lead to the same appearance as asthma, but due to a different cause and therefore treated differently. Finally she is going to do some more testing to make sure she doesn't have a secondary bacterial infection and to try to identify the virus more precisely. And, best of all, she completely backed up Jon's insistence today that Leah not be moved to a shared room since we don't know what she is suffering from and therefore whether she is a risk to anyone else nor do we want her subjected to anything additional.

While this means she will likely be here another night at least, we feel much better now that there is an actual plan in place for her treatment. It was most unsettling that no one seemed to know what to try next and so we were running around in circles while Leah was starting to do worse again. At least now she will be treated according to a plan with end points in place so we can evaluate whether it's working or not (I know, I'm such a scientist!). So keep your fingers crossed that this works quickly and she gets better soon! We are getting quite tired of this place!