Jenelle is still in the PICU

Just sending another brief update. Jenelle is still in the ICU. Thursday morning it looked like we were going to head home straight from the ICU as she was able to hold down some formula Wednesday – however, at around 11:00, Jenelle started vomiting again, and then became very non-responsive, sleeping all day. A feeding tube was inserted through her nose on Wednesday, and it has been a useful way to get down her meds until the vomiting returned. She has actually pulled it out a couple of times - she's a fighter! When she started sleeping so much yesterday, it reminded Brett and I of the time she was in sub-clinical status, so an EEG was ordered. Jenelle was having sub-clinical seizures (ie: seizures that are not visibly noticeable) but luckily was not in status (constant seizure state.) Jenelle has been at CHOC, and Thursday we got to see her “first” Neurologist Dr. Phillips. He got in touch with UCLA, and made a plan for what to do from here.

In order to “wake her up”, Jenelle is coming off the diet (which we had been able to maintain until the increased seizures and vomiting Thursday.) UCLA tells me this is temporary, until she gets healthy again. She is getting increased doses of a drug called Dilantin in order to stop the sub-clinical seizures. She had a CT scan and spinal tap yesterday, both of which were normal. Basically we are ruling out infection and/or meningitis. She is still pretty sick, we hope with just the flu. If she does not improve by Friday morning, UCLA may request she be transferred to their hospital for further treatment.

I’ve been staying at her bedside, and Brett is home with Jack. We are trying to keep his routine as normal as possible. Thank you for the extra prayers – please keep them coming! I’ll keep you posted when I can!