Another Hospital Visit

These kids are really keeping us on our toes. We were admitted again this week to Sanford Children's hospital. We've been giving the kids nebulizer treatments at home...Kaden since January and Kenley since the beginning of February. To be honest, I am seriously getting sick of them and they are taking up a lot of our time. Last week both kids appeared to be getting healthy again. We were doing nebs 4x/day and antibiotics and I thought they were really kicking this "junk" in the butt. However last weekend they both started coughing again and Kenley started having diarrhea. I mean, serious diarrhea. Worse than just the icky diapers from her amoxicillin. This was nasty.

On Monday, Valentine's Day, we were all up and ready to go for the day. The kids were dressed in their cute outfits and had their Valentine's treats by door ready to take to daycare. As I was feeding Kenley before leaving, she presented us with a monsterous throw-up. I always wondered if I would be able to tell the kids' spit-up from a throw-up since all they have been on is formula. I guess I don't have to question that anymore. She had puke everywhere!! I called in sick to work and we stayed home for the day just to see if anything was going to become of it. They both did really well that whole afternoon and I thought her morning throw up was just a fluke. I was wrong. Monday night we were up all night. The kids both had pretty high temps, Kaden threw up a couple of times and Kenley about 6 times before morning. I knew something was up and called the doctor to see if we could get in that day. We weren't able to see our pediatrician until 4:00 that afternoon. Throughout the day the kids just got worse and worse...I'm always amazed at how fast this crap hits them. They were refusing bottles and weren't having hardly anything for wet diapers and both were VERY whiney and irritable. The doctor could tell right away that Kaden had pneumonia and that they were dehydrated, so he admitted them both and now here we are again.

After IV's, fluids, oxygen, blood work, chest x-rays, urine samples and stool samples, we finally had some answers. Both of them tested positive for RSV. Kaden also has a bacterial pneumonia and Kenley tested positive for C. diff. (Clostridium difficile).

RSV: there really isn't much they can do but allow it to run it's course. Treatment consists of suctioning out the nose and nebulizer treatments.

Bacterial Pneumonia: The way we understood it from the doctor is that the typical bacterial pneumonia shows one focal spot of bacteria. Kaden is showing three of those spots within his lungs. They are currently running more tests to see if they can figure out exactly what kind of bacterial pneumonia it is. This pneumonia apprently has no connection to the last pneumonia he had in January. But it certainly is of concern that he's had two pneumonias in a month. We are supposed to be meeting with a pediatric pulmonologist tomorrow to see if he has any answers for us.

C. difficile: this is basically an infection of the intestines/colon. Kenley most likely got this from being on an antibiotic for the last 10 days. C. difficile is a bacteria in your intestines. Everyone has good and bad bacteria in their body, and the C. diff is a bad bacteria. When people are healthy and not taking antibiotics, the good bacteria keep the bad bacteria under control. However, when you take an antibiotic the levels of good bacteria are reduced and it is possible that the C. diff overtakes your colon and intestines, thus causing the illness. Symptoms include initial diarrhea and cramping and then later symptoms are common flu-like symptoms of weakness, dehydration, fever, diarrhea and vomitting...all of which Kenley had. Although antibiotics is what caused this, it is treated with a strong dose of another antibiotic...how ironic huh?!?

So now we are sitting here waiting for the kids to be on the mend and to get back home. We are hoping to be able to go home on Friday, but we will wait and see what the report is tomorrow.

Sorry for the long post, but I'm sure you all know we have more news to share with you. Cody had his MRI yesterday to re-check from the scan he had two months ago. In December the MRI had detected a spot of increased intensity that was of great concern given Cody's history. He also had a severe allergic reaction to the MRI dye. He was premedicated with Prednisone and Cody said this scan was 98% better. The resulst also came back as good news. They are still seeing this spot on the scan, however it has not grown at all. They are confident if this was new tumor, it would be growing. They feel that it is most likely just scar tissue. Another recheck is scheduled for two months and if at that time, everything looks the same, they will go back to every 6 months. There are no words to describe the feelings of relief.

We want to say a huge THANK YOU to every single one of you who have prayed and thought about our family this week. Those prayers are being heard.