Dodging a bullet

A lot has happened in the last several days, most of it not good but ending on what looks like a positive note. Since being intibated, Laney stabilized fairly well, although she certainly hasn't been entirely comfortable with a breathing tube back down her throat. She hated it before and she hates it now.

On Saturday the doctors decided to pull some spinal fluid to make sure Laney didn't have meningitis, but they didn't get to it until Sunday morning. By afternoon we had the results - it looked like she might have meningitis. This was devastating news. Her primary doctor suspected that her E. coli infection in her urinary tract must have migrated through her blood stream to the brain, then into her spinal fluid. For those who don't know, meningitis can cause a lot of bad things to happen, very bad things. If she did have it, our only hope was that they caught the entire infection soon enough that it never flared very intensely. However, the doctor wanted to have a specialist look at everything on Monday to confirm the diagnosis. We went home very worried.
Monday, however, was a new day. The specialist came in and thoroughy looked over all the available information, and came to the conclusion that she does NOT have meningitis. Instead, it appears that she has pneumonia. I can't say that Angie and I love pneumonia, but you've never seen two happier parents knowing their infant has pneumonia. What a blessing! The doctors were very happy with this news. Her treatment now is to stop one of the 3 antibiotics she is on, and change one of the others to something else. She will continue antibiotic treatment for 9 more days. And she wil hopefully be extibated tomorrow, assuming she continues on her path toward recovery.
We aren't out of the woods yet, and even when this step is done, that just puts us back on the path of getting out of here, and our journey on that path is far from complete. But tonight we feel like we might have dodged a big bullet, and we can't help but be happy, despite the fact that Laney is still uncomfortably lying in her bed with that breathing tube down her neck. Tomorrow is another new day, and hopefully we'll jump that hurdle when we get there.