Hospitalization #11 - Day 3 - Quick Update

Short update - Brett's blood cultures continue to show positive for live bacteria, even though the fever is gone. It is important not to wait too long to remove the source of the infection - the port - because the staph could easily start growing on his heart. It's what they call "vegetation." This could be a life-threatening illness if they do not intervene, so he's scheduled to have surgery tomorrow to have his port-a-cath removed. This means we will be spending Christmas at UNC this year.

Hospitalization #11 - Day 3

Christmas tree in the main lobby

A few changes for the better yesterday - Brett's fever is down to 99! Also, now that the fever is down, he can breathe much easier. He's in good spirits and more interested in play. Vancomycin is the drug he needs for this - it's also the drug that he had the adverse reaction to last year, called Red Man Syndrome. Since we know that, they just give him Benadryl before the infusion and run the infusion over a longer period of time. He still gets red sometimes, though, and that happened today.

Brett with mild Red Man Syndrome- notice the red top half of face and white bottom half. The Benadryl keeps this from getting all over his body and itching like crazy.

Brett's second set of blood cultures came back positive again. Has to be negative before he can go home. So we try again today and hopefully it will come back positive on Wednesday.

Rob's holding down the fort at home - went to urgent care yesterday because he was sick. He's taking care of Mark and Gantt by himself this weekend while very sick himself. What a Superdad! I am so thankful for him and the way he loves his boys. I admire him for doing whatever it takes to take care of his family when it's hard without complaint.

Hospitalization #11 - Day 2

 We have bumblebees out our window this time!

Brett is feeling better today! The blood culture that was taken the first night he was here tested positive for staph - which means a blood infection. They took 2 more cultures - one from his port and another from his arm, just to be sure. It's easy for a blood culture to become contaminated, even with a flake of someone else's skin. But these are real, and last night they started him on IV Vancomycin to treat the infection. He's had 3 doses now and is starting to feel well enough to sit up and play a little bit and watch TV. His temperature is down to 99! And he's breathing much better since the fever went down.

Checking out the equipment

f you're wondering how Brett got something like this, here's the way one doctor described it to me. Although his port-a-cath is covered with skin, whenever it's accessed, there is a chance for it to get contaminated. If bacteria is allowed to enter the space there at the port, it can colonize and start an infection. Then if some of the bacteria break loose from that colony, they get swept through the bloodstream and you now have a blood infection. It's a risk of having permanent IV access.

Hospitalization #11- Day One

We so wanted to stay away until January. But here we are again.

Feeling well enough to eat a little

After the infusion yesterday Brett began to run a fever (101.8). We gave him Tylenol which brought the fever down and Brett went to sleep as usual. At 2:30AM he woke up crying, needing a diaper change, but his skin was also extremely hot. His temperature registered at 104.6, and he was breathing very rapidly. I awoke Rob, who drove him to the emergency room where they were able to begin caring for him. I talked to Brett's doctors on the phone, of course, while they were on their way.

He did better overnight - his breathing settled to a more baseline rate but then this morning the fever was back up to 105. The Tylenol every 4 hours is keeping the fever down.  Many labs were drawn to try to pinpoint the cause of this illness - which could just be the virus I had last week. If he had any of that hanging around in his body then got the IgG infusion (which supports immune function), it could've caused his body to begin attacking that virus immediately, hence the fever. We won't know for awhile, but at least he is beginning to feel a little better.