A Visit to the Hotel on the Hill

For those who are new this year to Mason's blog, "The Hotel on the Hill" has always been my code name for Primary Children's Medical Center during times when Mason has been admitted as an inpatient.

That being said, you may guess that our weekend didn't turn out as expected! When we should have been celebrating his ZERO rejection Mason came down with a high nasty fever and felt crummy. Friday I just thought it was from Thursday's IVIG which would have been a normal reaction for one day after. But, Saturday night it was still high (at one point 103.5). After talking with the transplant team and a visit with our pediatrician Dr. W, we knew it must be a new infection he'd come down with! Those darn immuno-suppressants!!!

So, here we are staying at the Hotel on the Hill! Sunday morning I brought Mason up here to the ER to have labs drawn. Especially since his ears and throat looked fine when examined by Dr. W the next step was to do blood cultures, a viral test, CBC, CRP, and a chest x-ray to figure out what was causing the fever. After 7 hours in the ER Mason was admitted to the 3rd floor due to a high WBC (white blood cell count), a high CRP (which measures infection and inflammation in the body), and haziness on his left lung with suspicions of possible pneumonia again (or just never completely cleared up from last month!)

Mason was started on 2 IV antibiotics and will need them at least through Tuesday afternoon. They are using different ones than he was on last month in case this is a recurrence of the same pneumonia infection. His fevers have stopped and his WBC and CRP have already dropped today! So I think we caught his infection in time before it made him too sick.

As much as we love the doctors and nurses here at Primary's we hope to check out of the hotel. tomorrow. As long as his WBC and CRP continue to drop back towards their normal ranges we will be able to switch to oral antibiotics tomorrow and head home. Mason is just not a happy camper in the hospital even if I tell him it's really just the Hotel on the Hill!

This immune suppression thing is very hard!! As much as I try to keep him germ free somehow germs sneak there way into his little body. Both of our transplant teams say the first year is always the hardest. And then we have the extra worry because of Mason's left lung. Because of his PVS (pulmonary vein stenosis) causing very little blood and O2 flow through that lung he has a higher chance of getting infections there. Please pray with us that especially during this tough time of having basically no immune system that Mason can stay healthy and out of the hospital. We don't want rejection or any more infections!!!