Afternoon update

Maggie continues to be sedated and on the ventilator. She is spiking some fevers today every 5 or 6 hours or so, but that is not a major problem. Her blood pressure was trending downward which was a big concern. They've used some drugs and increases to her fluid intake to try to get her in a better range. They were close to jumping to a more aggressive drug, but are now happy where she is. That is a huge relief as it needs to stay high enough to keep all of her organs functioning. The doctors are also paying close attention to her and hoping that she doesn't get Sepsis, which would be very bad--this is when the infection that she is fighting gets into her bloodstream and spreads to all of her organs. That is one of our big concerns as we try to get through a couple of days of keeping her stable. She is in critical condition and will continue to have that status as long as she's on the ventilator.

She is also fluctuating in her oxygen supplementation needs. She has been wanting to wake up today, which causes her to gag and choke on her intubation, which makes her oxygen numbers get worse. So they'd like to sedate her a little more, but the drugs can lower her blood pressure. We're looking to find a happy medium with her oxygen, sedation, and blood pressure.

One of the keys to how this will go is whether or not Maggie can stay stabilized for a couple days which would get us to the point where some of her cultures will come back which will clue us in on how to treat her. Also, the expectation is that if she can weather the storm for a couple of days, she can get through the worst of the infection and start to recover. Then, we'll start working on taking her off of the respirator.

At this point there is some concern that this might be a fungal pneumonia, which are hard to treat. Or, it could be a number of other types of infection. This will be a big finding, too, because some of these infections are more responsive to treatment than others.

It continues to be a stressful and frightening day. Your continued prayers are desperately needed and appreciated.