update

My house guests have now all gone home and I finally have my house back to myself - I've felt a bit like I was running a B&B over the last week and a half, I've had folk coming and going so much!

Thank you all for your kind comments - I'm sorry for not replying properly, but have barely been near my computer over the last week or so, between one thing and another, and it's been such a rapidly changing situation it was hard to know what to say. Our level of emergency has gradually been scaled back, however, and Auntie Lel now seems to be progressing well. After a week on the critical care unit (first ITU and then HDU), she has now been moved to a private room on a general ward, and most of the hardware they've had her hooked up to has been removed. The doctors seem confident that they have the right diagnosis, although there are test results outstanding still and they remain reluctant to commit themselves to anything definitive - they certainly won't make any long-term plans at this stage. She is responding well to treatment, which is the main thing. This nocardia infection that she appears to have looks like a right nasty little bugger - the mortality rate for the unfortunate few who catch it is scarily high, while recovery for those who survive is an extremely long, slow process. Another complication, long-term, is that there is only one antibiotic that touches the bug at all, and it is only available intravenously - not a problem while the patient is still sick enough to require full time hospital care, but the medication is necessary for at least six months, maybe even a full year, as the bug can hang around in the system for that long, yet the patient can't be discharged with tablets when they are otherwise well enough to go home. I suppose we'll cross that bridge if and when we eventually get to it. At present, although Lel is much, much better than she was a week ago - is awake and mostly lucid, just about able to speak and picking at almost solid foods - she is extremely weak, can't even sit up, brush her hair or clean her teeth on her own, still has bouts of confusion and has definite holes in her memory. Recovery is going to be a very, very long and slow process, probably with a lot of twists and turns along the way. But the panic is over, for now, and only time will tell how much long-term damage has been done.

In Other News, this is Tabitha.

Tabitha lives just down the road. She is a very little thing, no more than a year old, at a guess, maybe less - still has that skinny, baby look about her and isn't full grown. She is in my garden a lot lately because she is friendly with Alfie - I often come home to find them playing together!

Here's Alfie looking regal (and chubby).


And Poppy looking pensive.

update

My house guests have now all gone home and I finally have my house back to myself - I've felt a bit like I was running a B&B over the last week and a half, I've had folk coming and going so much!

Thank you all for your kind comments - I'm sorry for not replying properly, but have barely been near my computer over the last week or so, between one thing and another, and it's been such a rapidly changing situation it was hard to know what to say. Our level of emergency has gradually been scaled back, however, and Auntie Lel now seems to be progressing well. After a week on the critical care unit (first ITU and then HDU), she has now been moved to a private room on a general ward, and most of the hardware they've had her hooked up to has been removed. The doctors seem confident that they have the right diagnosis, although there are test results outstanding still and they remain reluctant to commit themselves to anything definitive - they certainly won't make any long-term plans at this stage. She is responding well to treatment, which is the main thing. This nocardia infection that she appears to have looks like a right nasty little bugger - the mortality rate for the unfortunate few who catch it is scarily high, while recovery for those who survive is an extremely long, slow process. Another complication, long-term, is that there is only one antibiotic that touches the bug at all, and it is only available intravenously - not a problem while the patient is still sick enough to require full time hospital care, but the medication is necessary for at least six months, maybe even a full year, as the bug can hang around in the system for that long, yet the patient can't be discharged with tablets when they are otherwise well enough to go home. I suppose we'll cross that bridge if and when we eventually get to it. At present, although Lel is much, much better than she was a week ago - is awake and mostly lucid, just about able to speak and picking at almost solid foods - she is extremely weak, can't even sit up, brush her hair or clean her teeth on her own, still has bouts of confusion and has definite holes in her memory. Recovery is going to be a very, very long and slow process, probably with a lot of twists and turns along the way. But the panic is over, for now, and only time will tell how much long-term damage has been done.

In Other News, this is Tabitha.

Tabitha lives just down the road. She is a very little thing, no more than a year old, at a guess, maybe less - still has that skinny, baby look about her and isn't full grown. She is in my garden a lot lately because she is friendly with Alfie - I often come home to find them playing together!

Here's Alfie looking regal (and chubby).


And Poppy looking pensive.