Monday, April 10, 2006 - Discharged

The good news: we're home for good ... or so we hope
The not so good news: we still have no idea what's wrong ... we just know what's not-wrong.

James did well over the weekend, functioning quite like our normal little boy. He's still not eating
well, but drinking pretty good. The only sign of any problems was the fact that he still vomitted twice.

We returned to the hospital this morning to go through another doctor's assessement and then be discharged. Of course we lost our lovely private room and James wasn't all too pleased about being back. He was well enough to not like the idea of being cooped up in his bed, and it being a ward, he could no longer run freely in the room. Since we were waiting for the team of doctors, we could not wander far, but finally gave up waiting and went to the playroom for some more interesting entertainment. Although not the happiest character, this worked better, but mostly he just preferred to toot around in the back of the wagon.

Around noon the doctors came around and advised that further pathology results show everything to be normal. This of course is good news as cancerous concerns have been ruled out. Further blood work indicates that metabolically/nutritionally everything is functioning fine. Since everything is coming back fine they have advised that he likely has a virus. They are awaiting results from one more common virus, othewise it will be left as an uncommon/unnamed virus. Viruses can last anywhere from 10 days to months. This of course is the easiest and best answer, although at this time it leaves us uncertain and unconfident as to how to proceed and what to expect. If they are indeed right then hopefully he is on the recuperating end and has gone through the worst ... time will tell. They have no way of knowing how long he has actually had this condition (for those of you who know about his big fat belly), but have advised that his liver and spleen are functioning as they should and should be able to continue on in this condition for a long period of time. In other words ... there is no urgency to look any further into things, but to just wait them out.

We've already experienced the lesser priority of outpatients. James was suppose to return to the pediatrician this week for a follow-up and results of the final tests ... but we could not get in for two weeks. In the meantime we sit and wait. We will be under HomeCare with regards to a dietician and occuptation therapist to try work on his eating habits, but even this they cannot tackle fully as we really have no idea how he is truly feeling or how much of his dislike for eating is related to his current situation.

We continue to pray that the doctors are indeed right and this will all slowly go away and be forgotten. In the meantime we are thankful for the definite improvement we have seen in his condition over the last half a week.

We thank you all for your support, encourangement, meals, babysitting and offers to help. Hopefully we can resume our lives as a "normal" family again