Friday, August 19, 2006 - Hospital AGAIN

It seems I'm always writing when James is not doing well, so last week I thought I best send a letter off telling how good he was doing at home. How he was gaining weight, looking good, even looking older ... less baby, more little guy. He loves being home, is energetic and plays so well. I held off when things started looking less good on the weekend ... and well now ... he's been back in the hospital since Tuesday.

We're seeing much of the same problems as last time. Over the weekened we began to realize something wasn't right when his stomach becames very distended and he began to have pretty consistent blood in stools. Monday I tried getting appointments, but no luck until Tuesday afternoon, which was pretty much too late. Tuesday morning he suddenly spiked a fever and had trouble breathing. I packed the bags and went to the pediatrician appointment, figuring I had the appointment anyways and she could speed up the hospital admission process. Which she did do, but James helped speed it up too as he went into seizure/convulsion when I arrived at the hospital. Talk about a quick way to get a bed at Emerg. Within a minute he had a bed, his blood had been taken and an IV started.

Thankfully this time around James stabalized much quicker and his breathing did not get so out of control. By the next day he was LOOKING much better. His breathing was mostly good, to look at him he seemed well, but he continues to spike fever and has occasional boughts of irritability. He isn't allowed home until he is without fever for 24 hours. As much as we'd like to just wisk him home we want to stay so they can get closer to the bottom of the problem. Each time they try to tell us that a virus or something else has set off his LPI and he can't handle it. This is all fine and we know that this will occur often, but they've at this time never been able to prove he has a virus and this time when he came in he was healthy before hand ... the signs of trouble had been his tummy and the blood .... which seem to occur each time we came in. We're thankful that it is our own peditrician on call right now and she is in agreement with us that there seems to be something else going on in his body that keeps doing this, especially considering the fact that it's summer and not virus time.

He had a scope done of his inside bowel area as well as a biopsy of the tissues in this area. They were unable to do a full scope since it was done quickly and he wasn't completely "cleaned out". We are waiting for the results. I did overhear the doctors talking and it seems they may have found something as their was some coilitis (imflammation of the bowels) in this area. My pediatrician did not have the full information when I spoke to her next, except to give me a big name and said at that point she didn't really know what it was, how serious, how it was related, if it was related to the LPI or that the poor guy has two things going on. So we're waiting for further information on that and hope that this can help us figure out why he remains so unstable.

But on a good note, he did not lose weight again and is over 10kg (22lbs) now. The biggest he's ever been. All the doctors and nurses first commented on how he's put on weight and looks good, and how he seems to have grown up in the last couple weeks. He's also finally learning to walk, he'll need lots of practice yet as he's slow and wobbly ... but he's walking!!

I must get going, I actually desert my little guy and left him all by himself for the first time last night when I became sick. It's been years since I've had a bad fever, guess I needed one to be remind of how awful they are and what little James is going thru. So I've frozen and sweated last night and hopefully I'm thru that and can do my duties again today. I'll just have to take lots of Halls for my sore throat ... of the 5 admissions James has had, 3 I've picked up a cold (this being the worst) ... the joys of hanging out with the sick people.
Thank you for your continued prayers and support.