Home Again....Watching and Waiting

Yeah! We are home again!


There was never any final decision on if the fevers last Saturday were due to a lung infection or an infection on the incision (and possibly deeper around the rods) from Mason's spine surgery.


Mason's chest x-ray didn't look that bad. Well, his never looks normal anyways. The left lower lobe is always hazy from his pulmonary vein stenosis. But, on exam you can hear a little bit of crackles on that side right now. So he came home on an oral antibiotic more specific for lung infections (like pneumonia), in case that was the cause of the fevers.


As for the incision (and possibly internal) infection we are still unclear if there was/is an infection there. The main problem is that when the orthopedic resident came to check out his incision (while we were in the emergency room Saturday night) he cleaned up all the pus and put a new dressing on it. THEN the emergency room attending doc came in with her nurse to take a sample of the pus to send to the lab for cultures. Thus the sample sent to check for infection was not a good sample! The results were not positive for any infection, but possibly not accurate!


Saturday night Mason was put on 2 IV antibiotics and an IV anti-fungal to cover both lung and skin bacteria infections. Within 24 hours the incision started to look much better. When Orthopedics came to see it on Monday they said it would have looked much worse if there was actually an infection. But, Infectious Disease docs and the Transplant team did not completely agree.  Since Mason is on immuno-suppressants (his anti-rejection meds) his immune system may not respond the same as a normally healthy person. Even if there is an infection on his incision and deeper, his skin will not get super red and swollen like it would if his immune system wasn't suppressed. That being said, there was quite a disagreement between the docs! 


Monday night the general consensus was to take Mason off of the 2 IV antibiotics and the anti-fungal to see if the incision infection will re-manifest itself. So, WATCH and WAIT!! After no fevers and the incision still looking better by Tuesday night I told all the doctors that we can WATCH and WAIT at home. They really didn't expect anything to happen in 24 hours anyways after 48 hours of being on very strong IV antibiotics anyways. It could take 96 hours or more!


They agreed I can do the watching and waiting at home. Tuesday night we came home again! Hooray! Although, since they sent Mason home on antibiotics for the possible pneumonia this could keep the possible incision/spine infection at bay for at least the 10 days he's taking it. Just kind of complicated! But at least we are home! And so far, no more fevers!


The good news out of this hospital stay was that Mason came home OFF of OXYGEN! The Transplant team decided Mason needed to get another blood transfusion because his red blood cell count had remained too low since surgery. Even after he received a blood transfusion the night after surgery his count dropped again just a few days later. Therefore with a much higher red blood cell count his body's oxygen saturations are back up to normal. Hooray!


Thank you for your continued prayers and love for our little Miracle Mason.