Saturday update

Saturday has turned out to be a better day.  There's still a long way to go, but we're feeling optimistic

after some progress today.  From a comfort perspective: Theo's temperature has dropped from 103 this morning to normal now, his heart rate is back in the low-100s, and he has seemed comfortable all day.  From an infection standpoint: the bacteria strains causing the infection have been identified, and are being treated more aggressively now.


For a little more background, Theo started off the day with a fever hovering around 103 degrees.  His belly was as swollen as ever, his urine output had dropped off, and his face, hands and feet were also swollen.   During the morning rounds, the doctors decided to add another antibiotic so that they would have double coverage against the bacteria causing the infection.  As they told us, for any other critically ill child, the new antibiotic (called gentamicin) would have been started immediately once they knew the culture had gram negative rods.  For Theo, though, the decision was delayed because his temperature was normal for most of yesterday and using gentamicin is risky because it is toxic to the kidneys.   After 12 hours of a high fever, though, the doctors decided that the potential benefit of clearing the infection outweighed the risk of damaging Dubya.

Once the gentamicin was started, Theo's temperature started to come down and is now normal (thank God!).  We found out this afternoon that the particular bugs causing the infection are E. Coli and Pseudomonas.  E. Coli is fairly easy to treat with antibiotics, while Pseudomonas is considered more resistant.  It will take another day to check drug resistances, so tomorrow we'll have a better picture of the best medication to treat it.  Typically, gentamicin is successful in treating it.

Theo is still intubated and he may remain so until his belly swelling goes down and his lungs are under less pressure.  They have dropped his ventilator settings to a very low level, though, so he is doing some work on his own.

I know there is a prayer chain starting tonight for Theo.  Prayer has made a huge difference in the life of this precious boy.  Thank you all for being a part of it.  We have several specific prayer requests at this point: that the fever will not return, that the antibiotics will quickly clear his body of infection, that his bowels will start working (and soon), that the swelling will go down, and that the gentamicin will not damage his new kidney.  I guess healing and comfort would suffice for a shorter version.  :)

Nick and I are feeling better today.  It's amazing how much our spirits change as his temperature changes.  Overall, though, we know that God is here with Theo, and we know that God is good.  We continue to hope for healing and that one day we'll get to bring Theo home.  We are so lucky to have such a special boy.

Hope you all are having a great weekend!