Sorry to report that Lexe had another setback.  Lexe finished her fourth and final round of chemo 8 days ago.  Chemo went pretty good with steroids helping to keep her fevering down.  The biggest concern over the last week was the amount of weight Lexe has lost between rounds 3 and 4.  Her providers were working on a strategy to help her regain some of her lost weight.

Early Sunday morning Lexe awoke to a rather large fever, 103 to 104 degrees, and had her blood cultured for bacteria.  We found out last night that Lexe cultured positive for a gram stain negative bacteria.  She is again septic.  This sepsis is a result of her having no immunities.  She has started to fever really hard and is very nauseated.  Her blood pressures have had periods of being very low.  She required an IV bolus this morning to help get her blood pressures up.  So far she has avoided a return trip to the Intensive Care Unit.  Lexe continues to receive units of both platelets and blood.  She has required demerol to help control the rigors, a condition of sever shivering brought about by fevering.  Lexe is currently on four different antibiotics, Vancomycin, Fortaz, Flagyl, and Gentamicin.  These antibiotics are very powerful and hopefully will kill the bacteria causing all the issues.  Further blood culturing, results we are waiting for, will help further nail down the best drugs to use against this bacteria.  Lexe is also c difficile positive.  C difficile is a bacteria that we all have in our digestive tracts.  Constant antibiotic use, and chemotherapy, can cause c diff to overtake all the good bacteria in our digestive tracts causing major problems.  This is being treated with the drug Flagyl.

We are very hopeful that her lungs will be spared any trauma from this episode of sepsis.  We expect Lexe to start producing some of her own immunities in the next 10-14 days.  Till then, join us in crossing our fingers!