ICU

Last night as we went to bed, we were under the impression Mayleigh had her infection under control and that she was able to go to the bathroom and all her vitals had returned to normal. I could not sleep until I had a final update and this was music to my ears after first hearing about her struggles.
At 5:30 am I got a text from my mom that she was breathing very heavy and they were possibly going to take her to ICU to keep a closer watch. By 7:25 my mom called once again and let us know this was much more serious and we should probably come up.
Getting this kind of call is the most dreaded of all when you are hours away from someone. I felt in a panic as I tried to think of which direction to go first. Do we drop everything and leave immediately? Does Camille have time to finish packaging her orders? What about our dogs and my work etc...
It was nerve wracking to say the least and instantly all your positive attitude is flushed down the toilet as fear fills the crevices of your mind. I am a natural hypochondriac so it comes easily for me to be 0-150 on the heart rate scale. I have the panic attack down so right away.. Adrenaline.. Check.. Heart beating out of chest... Check...Scary shaking feel like your gonna die... Triple check.
In order to not have a heart attack while driving, we decided to take a deep breath and I would start packing while Camille finished her orders. This worked out great and we ended up finishing right about the same time and was able to leave by 11:30.
Normally Portland would be a 4 hour trip but under the circumstances it was more like 3:15ish. It could of been faster if people actually passed in the passing lane...
We arrived at the hospital and had to ask for directions as we have never been to ICU before (thankfully). When we got to her room we were only able to get a glance at her before the nurses told us we needed to step out. What seemed like an eternity was more like 5 minutes but we were finally able to go in and see her and hold her hand.
She is beyond weak, she still continues to float in and out of sleep and her voice is barely recognizable. Honestly, she wasn't far off from when we left except her internals have decided to give out on her and she's much more swollen. Her kidneys have been having a rough time flushing out all the different meds she's been getting. The doctors  are thinking the combination of the cytoxen and celebrex is what is causing a lot of the issues but the staph is what has taken her energy levels and functionality down to zero. Not to mention she's neutropenic on top of it all. She did receive red blood cells and platelets again so hopefully this we'll help with recovery. They have also had to give her sodium acetone to reduce the swelling in her feet as she has began to be septic and isn't releasing fluids as fast as she should. Overall she's a complete mess but she's still in there fighting. When she came to and realized she was in ICU she was angry with the nurses and was puzzled why they would remove her from 14k. She had no clue how bad off she had gotten and was ready to take it to them and let them know they were wrong. When we got this information we were ecstatic. If you know Mayleigh, you know she can be pretty stubborn and can somewhat short tempered. Knowing that she would wake up a spitfire gave us instant hope that our sweetiepie was still in there putting up a fight. 

Her blood pressure has stabilized and her heart rate remains around 110 which easily doubles my own. Her heavy breathing and constant mumbling under hear breath is very hard to watch and my heart aches for her.
We were told if they can get her infection under control, which is looking promising, as well as remove some of this water weight she will be able to return to the bone marrow transplant wing and resume her protocol. It is somewhat concerning that they have stopped the immune suppressants and all drugs until her body can flush out all the toxins,  but to ignore and proceed would be lethal. She is still day +7 and we were told she would get a boost to kick start her bone marrow on day +12 buy they ended up giving it to her shortly after we arrived. This was exciting because one of the nurses explained that this drug can reverse all the symptoms almost over night and her mother sores and pain would all start to fade. She's still early in her protocol though so I'm shocked that she's getting it this early. She could even engraft sooner if her body can pull out of this and her new donor stem cells start taking over. This would be ideal as she most likely would pull out of all this much easier.
This ride has been a very difficult journey. No one on the leukemia boat has ever sugar coated their experiences and the ALL group we are members of have stories like this and much worse posted everyday. We are all leaning on each other just as I am writing this to lean on you. If my words can help someone with a similar story or diagnosis, it makes every second of this blog worth while. Mom, Dad, Grandma and Fiance are all going to have to work as a team to assist her. This is not a one man job and it will take every ounce of our love and compassion to bring her back.
She has proven time and time again she's a fighter and I can only hope this fight is going to go exactly as we planned with cancer falling flat on its face.

UPDATE 8/3/17

Mayleigh's kidneys are still struggling and until they can kickstart or she can start clearing it out on her own they will be keeping her in ICU. We are waiting for the culture results to come back to see if the infection is gone. If it is they will continue to monitor and pray her kidneys reverse and flush. If the infection is there still they will probably have to pull her port and her Hickman line which would really suck. I hate to add additional stress to her but I think at this point she has succumbed to the fact she's a human pin cushion.

She is fighting with all she's got. She is very short of breath, she's exhausted and it's extremely painful to watch her have to go through this and there is nothing I can do but pray and hope this all goes back to normal so our baby girl can get back to kicking cancers ass!

Love to all of you following our story and sending thoughts and prayers!