Leg Infection Not Responding to Treatment

The news this morning was not good. They have been flushing the joint every day and directly injecting antibiotics into the joint. Last night, they pulled fluid from the joint again to see if the white blood cell count in that area was going down. No such luck. It actually went up. The x-rays showed that the area next to it, which is the growth plate, had more inflammation that the last set of x-rays. Thus, it is actually spreading. Not good news. Her prognosis went from good back to guarded again.

They need to more aggressively treat this. They are going to put a tourniquet onto her leg today and inject antibiotics directly into the vein and leave the tourniquet on for 10-15 min and then remove. They are also going to put two different antibiotics into her blood stream via the IV to get it through the entire body and not just the joint. She was getting Naxcel only to treat the lungs/septicemia. They think the septicemia in the blood is gone, but that it settled into this particular joint. We will have to wait for 2-3 days to see if this new treatment is working. If not, the option is probably to put her down. The vet wasn't too optimistic about her life if this new treatment doesn't work.

There is some good news, but it really means nothing if the leg infection doesn't clear up. They have been slowly decreasing her oxygen supplementation. As I mentioned yesterday, her breathing sounded better to me. They took her completely off the oxygen last night and she is breathing fine on her own. Dr. Norton said she is much happier without the nose tube in her. She is also putting her leg down and trying to use it. However, I think that is due to the pain meds she is on.

She didn't gain any weight the last day. They are going to increase her milk again. She thinks that she is using all her reserves to fight the infection.

Today was not the turn for the better I was hoping to get. Will the outlook for Hope ever turn? Is her body strong enough to fight the infection and beat it? I wonder if everything is just too much for her. She is officially 1 week old today and still struggling.