What has been going on

For those of you who don't already know, I brought Anslie to the emergency room at around 11am Monday morning. After a week of her struggling to eat and drink, irritability, cough, runny nose, and a mild fever, she woke up Monday with a fever of 102.7. Under the direction of her pediatrician she was admitted to Rady Children's Hospital for further evaluation. It has been determined that she has pneumonia (again). We will be spending another night in the hospital so that she can meet with a specialist that we had a previously scheduled appointment with (a gastroenterologist) to hopefully get some answers as to why she isn't gaining weight etc. Anslie is doing much better today. She is alert and the Occupational Therapist got her to eat a lot of food this afternoon (her first real meal in several days). Unfortunately it seems that Anslie got a tummy ache from eating so much, possibly related to her GI problems, and she has had a rough afternoon. As a result from her thrashing around for a few hours from her discomfort, she knocked her IV loose and the fluids were draining from her IV into her subcotaneous tissue instead of her veins, causing her hand and most of her right arm to become VERY swollen and tender. Currently the IV is out of Anslie's arm and the doctors will be administering her antibiotics through a shot. :( As long as I can get her to drink fluids (which is already proving to be a challenge) I don't think they are going to have to put the IV back in. Tomorrow Anslie will meet with the Occupational Therapist again (she is checking out Anslie's ability to swallow and see if she might be aspirating food or liquids, which could have caused the pneumonia) and we are hoping she will meet with the Gastroenterologist as well. We are particularly interested in meeting with this specialist because both Anslie's pediatrician and the Allergist she saw last week expect that he will be able to figure out Anslie's "failure to thrive" issues. Particularly, they will be investigating to find out if Anslie is still affected by GERD (acid reflux) or another GI disease called Eosinophilic Esophogitis. I have high hopes that we will be in the right hands tomorrow. Meanwhile, Anslie and I are just hanging around her hospital room waiting for her to get better. We appreciate all of the concern, phone calls, text messages, offers for food etc. It feels great to know that we are cared about! I don't know if I will have access to this computer tomorrow, but I will send another update when I can. Hugs and Kisses,-S