December 3rd

Ashley has successfully beat back the infection that landed her in the ICU a week ago. All blood tests have come back clear since the middle of last week. The combination of the infection and the course of the plasmapheresis treatments has her quite tired as she rebuilds her strength.

Ashley gave us a scary yesterday. In the late afternoon she had three seizures in rather quick succession. It is not unusual for someone in Ashley’s condition to have a seizure, but of course we were hoping she could avoid them. They seem to have been localized in that they appeared to only affect her left side. She was connected to an EEG all night last night to monitor her. She did not have a reoccurrence.

Ashley had been placed on a low dose of medication to head off a seizure, but now she will be given a larger dose. The medicine causes drowsiness so we are hoping that will not hider her in therapy.

As a precaution an anesthesiologist evaluated Ashley. He wondered about her choking reflect so he shot a syringe full of water in her mouth. Rather than choke Ashley simply swallowed it without any problem. This even after being given a high dose of medicine for the seizure. Seeing that the doctor simply said, “I don’t think we have to worry about choking.” Although Ashley has been given very small sips of water in the past and part of her speech therapy is getting her comfortable with minute amounts of liquids on a spoon she had never before had several ounces of water at once.

One of the things we noticed today is that Ashley’s right arm, which had been quite stiff from toning the last couple months, was limber. We don’t know if that is just a temporary side affect of the medication she was given last night, or if the seizure may have caused a change. Another difference was that Ashley was moving her eyes and head much more and tracking anyone that was talking to her. Perhaps this won’t be a setback for Ashley. We all know she is due for a break.

This will put a delay in Ashley’s transfer back to RIC which was scheduled for today. Hopefully she will transfer in a day or two. She spent less than 24 hours in the ICU and is back in yet another room on the 10th floor (this will be the 4th room she has been in on that floor over the last 20 days).

We know Ashley is anxious to get back to RIC and to resume full time therapy. Over the weekend we were moving some of Ashley’s clothes and other items to RIC and as we talked about it she would smile and raise her right arm to show her approval for getting out of the hospital and back to work with physical, occupational and speech therapy.