Have PICC line, will travel.

A week ago Sunday, my elder daughter, E, woke up with a fever and abdominal pain. We knew from experience that it was probably a recurrance of cholangitis, an infection of the bile ducts that she is prone to due to her underlying liver disease. After waiting a few hours to see if she'd get better or worse, we called her doctor and were instructed to go into the hospital.

This happened in September, and she got better quickly, so we had high hopes this time. Instead, it turned into her longest hospitalization yet.

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I have to give kudos to NASA. I was told that they developed the medicine delivery system that E is using. In the hospital they use gravity-dependent systems--hence the reason saline and meds hang from poles--but NASA needed a way to give meds without gravity, so they developed a pressure system instead. Her medicine is inside what is essentially a water balloon, sealed inside a pressurized plastic bottle. When we hook the line from the bottle up to E's PICC line and release the clamp, the gas pressure inside the bottle squeezes the balloon and pushes the medicine through the line into E. She can even walk around with the bottle in her pocket! The pressure is just enough that the medicine goes into her over a half hour period. Pretty cool!

One side effect of this illness--E's PELD score will be reevaluated, so we're one step closer to a liver transplant.