Found the Bug (we think)

Friday 22nd December

It seems as though everything is getting ready to close down for Christmas but nothing has changed for us. We are keeping positive and just hope that the ECMO is working for Grace.
In the morning, the nurse told us that the respiratory expert had been to see Grace today and that he was happy that she was making steady progress whilst her lungs were being rested on ECMO - at last some really concrete good news - I think, but then we don't want to get too excited about a recovery as we have been there before and just felt desperate afterwards. After the afternoon ward rounds, however, I spoke to one of the doctors / fellows on the ward who I had not yet really met. She said that the DNA tests that they had been doing on Grace's blood had managed to isolate the pneumococcus bacteria and that this was therefore the probable cause of Grace's lung problems. However, there is no need to change Grace's treatment as she is already on broad spectrum anti-biotics that should have killed / be killing all of this bacteria. Apparently it is just unlucky for a toddler like Grace to get this sort of bug on top of a virus like RSV - although a test done today also showed that Grace is now RSV negative. The doctor also confirmed what the nurse had said earlier about the slow but steady progress. We are obviously relieved that some corner appears to have been turned but I can't forget that Grace is still REALLY, REALLY poorly and won't be back at home any time soon. Later this evening, one of the nurses aspirated Grace's stomach (as they often do to see how well Grace is absorbing the enriched milk feeds she is being given) when she was rather more awake than she should have been, i.e. the sedation should have been given earlier we think. The upshot was that Grace was rather upset by this and her pulse rate and blood pressure soared. I was so scared again - despite the nurses saying that they had it under control. This just reminded us again that we are so far from being out of the woods! We kissed Grace goodnight and tried to calm down after everything seemed to be OK.