A Minor Setback

Here is another post from Natalie's father:

Natalie has had a minor setback this week, one of those things that can happen when you are in hospital for a while. She has Clostridium Difficile Colitis (known as C-diff), which is basically an infection of the intestines. This is something that can develop when you are taking antibiotics (which Nat was taking for a UTI), or you can get by contact, particularly in a hospital. It causes diarrhea, cramping and flu like symptoms, the cure is a different antibiotic.

At the beginning of the week Nat did make more progress. She wrote “Nat” on a piece of paper and drew a star when asked to. She was also making progress eating little spoonfuls of various foods and drinking orange juice through a straw, which she loved. Unfortunately after a couple of days she vomited the orange juice and as she got sicker she got very tired. Her feeding tube was then disconnected for a couple of days and she has had to miss a few of her therapies. Since she is very tired and feeling unwell she has stopped talking or communicating much, but she does still give an occasional thumbs up or down to questions. Her white blood cell count had been up, but is now back to normal, so her tube feeding was re-started this morning. Hopefully she will recover more over the weekend and will be ready to make more progress next week.

I will update you all as soon as Natalie starts feeling better and improving!