Still in Hospital

We are now one and a half weeks into his stay.  Last weekend Ethan tested positive for c difficile.  It is a common bacterial diarrhea infection in hospitals and long-term care facilities.  Ethan's case was likely brought on by frequent antibiotic use.  If not caught early enough, it can cause more serious intestinal conditions like colitis and in rare cases can be fatal.  Because of all the antibiotics he's been on, the healthy bacteria in his colon got wiped out and allowed the c difficile to thrive.  Due to the risk of colitis, we have had to hold his probiotic because if the infection gets into his blood stream it could then become fatal.

They've told us it is a spore and when handling his diapers, etc we have to wash our hands with soap and water to kill the bacteria.  It cannot be killed by the hand sanitizer.  The spore is able to live for long periods on surfaces.  They have to come clean the room twice a day in an effort to control the risk of outbreak; once to kill the spores with a peroxide mixture and the second time for the usual cleaning.

To complicate matters a bit, Clayton has gotten an infection and has been put on antibiotics.  He will not be doing any of Ethan's care for at least 24 hours from the first antibiotic dosing and it may be longer depending on what the doctors suggest.  We do not want to risk him sharing his infection with Ethan nor Ethan sharing c difficile with Clayton.

And We're Back to...

Rhinovirus!  That is the first virus that brought Ethan back to hospital in September.  It was the one that caused his first seizure and our first trip to the ER by ambulance.  And brings back memories I'd rather not have to live through again.  Seeing him stop breathing like that and turn blue then grey...really nothing a parent should ever see.  Thankfully he restarted breathing and hasn't frightened us in that way again.  It is also when I started blogging about him.  Maybe now that we've come full circle he will be well again for a longer period?!  A girl can hope, can't she?!

Some Kind of Record

It was 1 week, 1 hour and 45 minutes since Ethan's discharge from hospital and I was sitting in the ER triage with him tonight.  He is being admitted again for respiratory distress.  :(  They think it might be another viral infection but we won't know until his cultures come back.  He wasn't looking too great when I left (his O2 needs were at 3 litres) and he has his whiney I feel like dirt sounds again.  :(  Please keep him in your thoughts that he recovers quickly from this.  We were hoping to recast him next week...they will likely say that we really need him well before that can happen...

The Good, The Bad, and The Unknown

Okay, maybe I should say the great...Ethan is out of hospital again.  YEAH!!  He came out on Monday, one day shy of 3 weeks!  He is currently in therapy and not happy to have us only pop in for a visit yesterday.  :(  We have to do a new therapy with him called breath stacking.  They are not trained there yet, so we have been doing it once a day.

Breath stacking equipment at the hospital. (Yes, that is a resuscitation bag - modified for our use.)

The Bad - Ethan was not able to get his MRI, they were too worried about sedating him with a current respiratory issue.  They would like him to be well for 2-3 weeks...which if you've been following this blog, then you likely know that could be a difficult feat to reach.  Anesthesia also isn't keen on the idea of sedation for casting...but I was able to discuss this with our surgeon and he would like to recast in a couple weeks.  :)

The Unknown - Potentially a bit of bad as well...IF the surgeon is not able to see more than a 5 degree improvement with the next cast then he wants to revisit the surgery discussion.  When he laid this option out to me our conversation went like this:

Me: The youngest you've done surgery on is 4, right?
Him: Yes.
Me: Ethan isn't 4!  He only just turned 3.
Him: Yes, but he's a pretty big boy.
Me: Okay, so what is the youngest you can fuse (the spine)?
Him: The youngest I like to do is 10 years old.
Me: So, that's 14 surgeries.
Him: Ah, about that yes.  But the extension surgeries are only 1-1.5 hours long.
Me: Yes, but that is 14 risks of infection and we know that he is prone to infection.
Him: Ethan has proven to be a challenge in the past.

To cut the surgeon some slack, I did acknowledge that we know he will likely have to have fusion surgery to correct his scoliosis...we would just like to put it off for as long as possible.  He also said that there has been success with casting on older children.  The only limiting factor is that Ethan's scoliosis may be a bit more rigid.  Please send some good thoughts for the next casting.