Taming the bull...

Our son may only be 3 years old, but I'm absolutely certain that their is a 30 year old man locked in that body somewhere. Any time that we have to do something around here, he puts up a fight. Changing his diaper, there's a fight. Giving medicine, there's a fight. Getting vitals, there's a fight. Drawing blood for his lab work, there's a fight. Abdominal ultrasound, there's a fight. Changing out ports on the central line, there's a fight. I know what you're thinking, "Oh, he's only three years old, it can't be that bad!" No, I assure you that he has the strength of a grown man. He will buck his entire body off of the bed and then wail himself back down, just to get out of doing something. Typically it takes two or three people to hold him down during any given event, and it always goes smoother when daddy is around. Let's face the facts, he is a lot stronger than I am. Usually we only have to do two or three of those things a day, but today we had to do them all while daddy was at work, and it was a doozy. Hence the title "Taming the bull". By the time 2 o'clock had come around we were both so worn out from the day that we crashed for nearly three hours. Let me get you a visual...

Before the ultrasound:

After the ultrasound:

Other than wrestling with each other all day, today was a pretty good day as far as progress. His kidney function finally came down from 0.8 to 0.5, and his urine output increased significantly. This is amazing news for us, and gives us hope that his kidney will make a full recovery from this nasty virus. He is still fever free and diarrhea free, which means that his body seems to have successfully kicked the virus to the curb. He's also started eating and drinking more by mouth, and tonight we are starting him back on his continuous feed of formula. We are going to start at a low rate and gradually increase it overnight. He has to be tolerating his full feeds again before we can be released, so this is just one more step in the process. The only setback that we have had today is that Parker's H&H levels were low, indicating that he was anemic. We have been taking large quantities of blood from him everyday, sometimes twice a day, so his body needed us to replace what we were taking out. In order to give his body a boost, he received a blood transfusion this afternoon.

The labs that were drawn this morning showed that his Prograf level was extremely low, almost undetectable, which is not a good thing for his kidney. If you remember, we did have to stop his Prograf for a while so that his body's immune system could strengthen and fight off the virus. Today we had to start the Prograf again, but at a much smaller dose. We actually gave him a rescue dose this afternoon around 12:30, and his regular dose tonight at 7 o'clock. Hopefully these two doses combined will bring his Prograf level to a place where his kidney is better protected. We also tested his blood this morning to determine the levels of Adenovirus that still remain in his blood. Those results won't be back for up to 48 hours, so the earliest will be Wednesday.

Once again, Parker's prayer warriors have come through. Please continue to pray that we remain on a path of improvement. We really are hoping to be out of here by Christmas next week!