WE ARE GOING HOME!!!

The doctors just left and are very pleased with his turn around. He has his appetite back 100%, he is active and playful and he has now been more than 30 hours without a fever!!! So all that they wanted him to do he has done. His ANC is still low so if he were to spike again we would be heading back, but we are going to pray that the worst is over and that the improvements will keep coming!!! I'm gonna go pack our stuff up, we'll be out of here sometime this afternoon. Thanks for the prayers!

Please Pray:
1. That he will continue to do well, and the fevers will stay gone so that we can stay home!!!

2 Steps Forward

Dear Lord,
There is a part inside of me that is broken, please touch my heart and help me to heal. Amen


Donavynn vomited twice today, I'm thinking it may have been in part because he hadn't eaten in so many days and then he just ate too much instead of taking it slow. But they gave him some Benadryl to help with the nausea. For dinner he had 2 pieces of toast and 2 plates of chips and he has held that down. To drink so far today he has had 20 oz ontop of the 60 ml (2 oz) an hour he is getting IV. He has only had 2 BM's today so he's slowing way down. They still aren't normal but they aren't coming every 10 minutes either which has helped his bottom to heal, along with my wonderful care. :) And *drum roll please* in 1 hour he will be 24 hours without a fever!!!! For some reason I thought he had a fever this morning but the nurse checked the vitals again and said that the last time he had a fever was at 1:30 am, my days are all running together. When the aid just checked his temperature he said "cool as a cucumber" And now Donavynn has been repeating it. lol So the other news is that he has been sitting up and coloring and playing with his trucks tonight. And laughing and playing and acting like Donavynn again!!! It is so great to see more of that smile and hear more of that wonderful laugh that I have missed so much. I am hopeful that we may be discharged sooner than I was originally expecting. That would be fantastic! It is possible (but not likely) that we could be out as early as tomorrow, but I'm not going to get my hopes up, a much more likely discharge date would be Tuesday or Wednesday - provided he continues to improve. And he has been improving in leaps and bounds so I know all those prayers have been working! I'm gonna hit the sac, I'll post again in the morning when we have some news.

Please Pray For:
1. Continued improvements in healing of his skin breakdown, in his appetite, and in his diarrhea.
2. That we will have our answers soon or that he will at least be better so that we can go home.
3. That the nausea doesn't return and he will be able to hold down all of his food.
4. That he will remain fever free, finally! :)


*For anyone that I haven't been able to call, please understand that while we are in the hospital our days are filled with so many things from trying to get some rest to cleaning up messes every 5 minutes, talking to doctors and nurses, etc. Our time is limited and often when I do have time to make a phone call I'm lucky if it lasts for 5 minutes before Donavynn is screaming because he needs to be cleaned up or he just needs something. This is why I have the blog, so that people can check in and get updates and I don't have to make a dozen calls. It is also nice because if I get interrupted (which I often do) I can come back to it later and finish what I was saying. If you check back often and there aren't updates that is usually a good thing, that means all is well and we are busy having fun and enjoying our summer. I do believe (don't quote me on it) that you can subscribe to the blog so that you will be notified if there is a new posting. I believe it is at the bottom of the screen if you scroll all the way down. I'm not 100% sure on this because I'm still pretty new to blogspot and trying to learn all the ins and outs. It has it's good qualities but it also has some things that I don't care for as well, but we are adapting because I don't want to switch sites yet again.

1 Step Back

Well all that eating this morning didn't sit so well with his tummy so we had quite the mess to clean up. But the good thing was that because he vomited all over his dressing they just deaccessed him so I could give him a bath and reaccessed him after he was clean. Bed baths are good but a real bath is great and nothing compares! He still is very happy, smiling and laughing, he even played a little in the tub. But maybe he just put too much in there to quickly. I'll keep you posted.

Babysteps in the right direction on day 5

The doctors just left and all tests are still negative, we won't know about the parvo till tomorrow though. But we did see some improvements last night that have grown and spread into today. His appetite is better, he is snacking on muffins and gold fish, even had a pop tart this morning. They are going to decrease his IV fluids in hopes that then he might want to drink as of right now he is only taking sips here and there, likely because with all the fluids he is hydrated so well that he doesn't feel thirsty at all. He was up much of last night, but not in a bad way. He took an early night nap and then wanted to be up playing with daddy into the wee hours of the morning. As far as I know he didn't have any bowel movements last night which is a huge improvement and this morning he actually asked to go to the bathroom. This was the first time in a few days that he had been out of bed, so that was huge too! We are still seeing the same consistency, an improvement but not totally better yet. And the best news of all - NO MORE BOOTY PAIN! He always tells me when I have to clean him "Mom, don't hurt the bootay!" lol But today you can still see that there is some breakdown but it is getting better every day and the pain is gone so that is a really good sign. His ANC is up to 563, so we are headed in the right direction. They said he still isn't ready to go home yet, but we are moving in that direction. So lets hope for a Monday discharge. He misses his cousin Derek and his Nana like crazy so we want to get home so we can spend lots of time with them. I won't get my hopes up because a discharge tomorrow isn't likely, because he did have a fever this morning. But it is possible provided that the fevers don't come back anymore and he continues to show improvements in all areas like he has.

We are going to take a nap now, I'll update later if there is anything new to report.

Please pray for:
1. No more fevers
2. Continued improvement in diarrhea and breakdown healing
3. Continued improvement in his appetite and overall attitude (we have seen more smiles today than we have seen in 2 weeks!)

The prayers are working, and I thank you all so much!!!

(Angela, I posted a comment to the last blog for you)

Day 4 Update

Ok where to begin. We still aren't sure of anything yet but we have learned a bit today. He got blood this morning because his hemoglobin was low (7.7). His other counts are starting to come back up - his WBC is 1.14 (1140) and his ANC is 240. So because the other cells are recovering and the red cells are not the decided to do another viral test for parvovirus B19 don't be confused, like I was, this isn't the same parvo virus that affects animals, it is actually the virus that causes fifth disease. They don't think that that is what it is but they wanted to check anyway because he does have some S&S of that (low reticulocytes, slapped cheek look even though H&H is low, diarrhea) the good thing is that if it is that they can help him a little. Being a virus there isn't much that they can do but they can give him IV Ig to help give his immune system a little boost to kick it in the ass. The down side is that now we are on contact AND droplet precautions!

I'm not overly thrilled with the aide today. Dave was able to make it up last night which was nice, he gave me a little birthday break from the hospital. While I was gone he told me that the aide cleaned Donavynn's butt and instead of patting she wiped and he was now bleeding, and instead of using warm wet washcloths she used a spray cleaner. This wouldn't normally bother me because they would be doing what they do for a lot of other kids BUT I wrote out care instructions for his bottom and hung them above his bed. So WTH! Anyway, he seems better now. He has been eating. I brought him back a happy meal and he ate 1 chicken nugget and most of his fries along with all but one mini muffin in a package. He was also snacking a little while I was gone and Dave was able to get him to laugh and play a little. So I'm not sure if it is the blood, Daddy or the fact that he is starting to feel better or a combination of the 3 but he is better today than he has been in over a week. I couldn't even get him to talk for the last 3 days, he would scowl at me and say "I don't wanna talk to you!"

Well I'm thinking that is about it for now, I gotta go give him his much needed bed bath. I'll update when we know more, oh and BTW we won't know about the parvo thing until Monday because they don't run that test over the weekend.

Please pray for:
1. Rapid healing of his body from this infection and his bottom from the breakdown.
2. That we will have answers soon.
3. That he will stay happy and eating with continued improvements, that the fever will go away the diarrhea will stop.

Other things I may or may not have mentioned in a previous blog - his cultures from our local hospital came back positive the other night at 2 am, that has been deemed a contaminate just like I figured. And though his fever was kept at bay for 19 1/2 hours yesterday it has been back since so we are now on the 7th day of fever and 14th of diarrhea.

Fevers Back

I guess we jinxed ourselves. The fever came back tonight. And the cultures drawn on Tuesday grew gram positive cocci - don't know which one yet but it was positive. I'm thinking it was likely a contaminant and not a real positive because usually when he actually is sick they grow in 12 hours not 72 and all his blood work is pointing at a virus not bacteria. So we'll see, I'm not a doctor. Either way they said the antibiotics he has been on would cover it anyway so nothing will change. I'm heading to bed. Daddy will be here in a few hours and this may be the only rest I get for the night.

My Mistake...

Just talked to the nurse, he has been fever free since midnight last night!!! So we are already at 19 1/2 hours without a fever! I am praying that this is a sign that he is on his way back up because this is the longest he has been without a fever so far!!! *cheering*