Hospital Update on Alex

I am trying to get out a quick update on what has happened and where we are at this point.

Saturday night Alex woke up around 10:00 and said he wasn't feeling well. We checked a temp and it was normal. He took some medication for nausea and went back to sleep. He woke me up at midnight still not feeling well. He still did not have a fever so I gave him medicine for stomach pain and sent him back to bed again. He woke me up just before 1:00 saying he felt worse and his temperature was 103.4. We quickly headed in to the ER.

On Sunday right before lunch his blood cultures came back growing the same bacteria that he has grown every other time. A quick explanation for all the people who have asked...Alex's intestines especially his colon are extremely damaged from years of not working correctly. The continuous horrific distention from gas has caused the lining of his intestines to stretch to the point that it is leaking into his bloodstream. At this point the only solution is the major GI Surgery that we were planning to do in January or February.

Alex ran fevers until Monday morning, but has been fever free since then. He is being treated with the only two antibiotics that this bacteria is sensitive to. There has been much discussion about trying to leave his port in place and treat with the antibiotics or pull his port finish his course of antibiotics to be sure we have cleared the infection and then replace his port. Infectious Disease feels strongly that removing his port is the safest course long term. The fear of leaving this port and trying to treat is that if we don't clear it we are allowing the bacteria to become resistant to the only two medications that we can use.

Here is the catch...putting in a new port makes no sense until the GI surgery is done because we will just infect the new port as well. So we are trying to get all the specialties here to talk and do one surgery later this week to include the GI surgery and remove his port. Then we would finish the antibiotics and replace his port after the holidays.

Alex is doing pretty well emotionally today. He is feeling as ready as he can to do the major surgery. He is scared,  but doing a great job talking about his feelings.

Please continue to pray for Alex, physically and emotionally, pray for the doctors to coordinate and make this plan work, pray for Maddy as our hospitalizations are hard on her, pray for me as I am so tired.