Candida Blood Infection

After having her 2 month vaccines Aurélie woke up with a fever of 39.5 (where a normal range is 36.5-37.5) and a high heart rate of 180-200. The nurses and doctors were convinced she was having a reaction to her vaccines. They immediately gave her Tylenol and checked her vitals. After being woken up, I noticed her eyes crossing and she had a very dull tone. I told the nurses I was concerned as the Tylenol was not helping her fever so they called a team of specialists to come and take a look at her. After taking a blood culture and urine test, they decided to start her on antibiotics just in case she was fighting an infection. 

35 hours later, the culture had shown Candida (also known as yeast) growth in her blood. They immediately took out her picc and placed an IV instead. Having a picc and being on TPN (what is giving her calories and nutrition) puts you at risk of having an infection. The bacteria love to cling to plastic and live off of the sugars that are being pumped into the vein.

Before inserting a new picc, they needed to know that the infection was gone. She had 2 more blood cultures done before it showed that the bacteria was gone. Meanwhile she was on anti-biotics to fight the infection, her white blood count was abnormally high. The doctor told us that a norm for a baby would be around 12, and she had 24, and over a couple days went up to 36. They were not too concerned as her body was under a lot of stress. 

She is currently on the antibiotics for another week, and her white blood count is going down slowly. These past 2 weeks have been stressful and scary but she is on the road to recovery! They were able to put her picc back in, and get her off of IV. 

We were told that blood infections are common when you have a picc for so long. We are hoping we will not run into another obstacle before we get to go home. She is now eating 15mls 6x a day and having bowel movements! She’s doing so well, we are praying to reach full feeds within the next 4-6 weeks.