E. COLI

E. coli is a nasty word, especially when it is attacking your child! Claire had a routine urinalysis during her very first appointment at MUSC. Shortly after that day, we were instructed to begin catheterizing her and we left town for St. Louis. Apparently the results from that urinalysis were not back until we left and unfortunately the nurse had misplaced our cell phone numbers and could not contact us. They had found e. coli in her urine! The Urologist thought it might have been in her system long enough that she was not affected by it since she was in good health when that specimen was taken. That can happen with children that have neurogenic bladders that do not empty. Bacteria will colonize in their bladders and they become able to keep a balance of good with the bad. But, he wanted us to know because she could become very ill. As you know, while we were in St. Louis, that is exactly what happened and we had to take her to a local urgent care clinic. They also did a urinalysis, and due to her symptoms, they went ahead and put her on an antibiotic for urinary tract infections. They too found e. coli in her urine but by the time we found out, we were at home where we were greeted with an answering machine full of messages about the two urine tests. At this point, she had been on antibiotics and appeared to be back in good health! When we went to her Spina Bifida clinic appointment, another urinalysis was ordered to see how things were going. The nurse did note that Claire was running a slight temperature though. Yesterday when I went to get her out of the crib I immediately knew something wasn't right because I could smell foul urine. When Paul got home from work, I let him know. This reminded him that the nurse from MUSC had in fact called him and told him that her results were back and she still has the e. coli in her system! They told him to notify them if she had foul smelling urine or ran a high temperature. This morning we let them know and they called in a prescription for her. By the time we got it filled she was running a 104 degree temperature. The nurse, called to let us know that we were to give her this medicine every 6 hours, even to the point of waking her up to give it to her! She said that if this does not knock it out, Claire will have to be hospitalized to have IV antibiotics administered!

Tomorrow morning, at 7:00am we will pull out of our drive way heading for St. Louis again. Thankfully, we found out about this before we left and she is on the best antibiotics we can get her on. Please pray that this drug will do it's job. I can not imagine her having to stay in the hospital!