Hospitalization #12 - Day 2

Here we are on day 2 - Brett's blood cultures grew a "gram positive cocci" very quickly. Although it will not be absolutely determined until tomorrow, it is probably the same staph aureus making him septic. He started Vancomycin today and will have his port removed.

Brett is on the operating room schedule for tomorrow morning, so please pray that everything will go smoothly as usual with the anesthesia and the procedure itself. They will place a peripheral IV line in during the procedure that we can use for the antibiotics as long as it lasts. The peripheral IVs tend to fail easily in babies, which is the worst part about not having a central line when you need iV antibiotics. He will need to be treated this way for as many days as possible - they want 5-7 days AFTER they get a negative blood culture. Moreover, Brett will be in the hospital quite awhile. There are various directions his care could take between now and then, so we'll just take it one step at a time.

Our room

 If we have to stay awhile, one good thing is that this time we got a corner room, which is VERY BIG! You can see it in the picture above, and you can see the cool set-up Rob did with our new inflatable bed.

This is the view from our room

One of the most difficult things about having a child in the hospital is actually keeping up with the normal life stuff that doesn't stop for illness - like work, school, and running the household. Just today I dropped Mark off at school, went inside the school to complete re-enrollment for next school year, took Gantt to the doctor (he has pinkeye as well as an ear infection), got his prescriptions filled, went to the insurance company to get more papers needed for school re-enrollment, took Gantt home and got him settled with the sitter, and went to the new house to meet with the designer and the tile people.

Gantt sick with pinkeye and ear infection

After that I drove out to the hospital to relieve Rob so he could "book it" back to school and watch Mark do his special part at chapel today! He then continued on with the childcare and the homework, and the feeding of dinner, and the packing of backpacks and lunches, and putting the kids to bed. We have to tag-team everything.

However, we are so grateful that our home and business are so close to the hospital - especially with us not knowing when we moved here that we would be needing this hospital so often. It takes about 45 minutes to an hour, but there are plenty of families here that live hours and hours away and don't have the luxury of switching off very often or getting to see the kids at home every other day or so. We carefully remember to count our many blessings - including our parents who come up often to help us. Thank you for all your kind words of encouragement and all the prayers going up for Brett. We are grateful for every one!