Saturday 15th July

Much news today, with a cautious positive outcome.

Enmarie is feeling much better. She has more energy, she's walking around, her appetite has increased and she's generally happy and smiley. It's very good to see!

Since my last post she has seen the specialist in Emergency Medicine who saved her life in ICU, the specialist in Infectious Diseases who has been overseeing her treatment for the pneumonia and endocarditis, and a new doctor: a heart surgeon, of whom more later.

An x-ray this morning showed continuing, improved healing in Enmarie's lungs. As a result of this she has been taken off the oxygen which is excellent news, meaning that her lung function is now good enough to give her a normal blood-oxygen percentage. Essentially, she is done with the pneumonia, apart from convalescence.

The MRI showed the details of something I haven't mentioned before, because there was enough bad news already! As a result of the blood poisoning some bacteria found their way into two vertebrae in Enmarie's spine and there was concern that an abscess might have formed there which would require surgery to remove. The CT scan last week appeared to show no abscess but they needed an MRI for a definitive diagnosis. The MRI results are good. There are signs of infection in the two vertebrae but no abscess. The antibiotics that Enmarie is already taking ought to sort that out completely. 

The endocarditis infection in Enmarie's heart takes the form of a one centimeter infected mass, known as a 'vegetation'. Last night the heart surgeon said that, if it doesn't get a lot smaller Enmarie might need open heart surgery to remove it. He listened to her heart and heard no murmur, which was good, implying that nothing was interfering with the normal flow of blood through the heart. 

Naturally, we were more than a little concerned at this revelation. However, talking to the Infectious Diseases doctor this morning, she said that the MRI showed that the vegetation wasn't on one of Enmarie's heart valves which might have required surgery if the valve was compromised. Rather, the vegetation was on the inner wall of the heart and the valves were all working normally.

In short, after a bit of head-scratching, it seems unlikely that Enmarie will need heart surgery. All this will be reviewed again after a week's intravenous antibiotics in hospital followed by a few weeks of antibiotic tablets at home.

Sighs of relief all round, with fingers crossed!