Update 3/1/09

It's been almost a week since Beck was released from the hospital and it seems like he is finally beginning to get his strength back. He will now walk again, but is extremely cautious and takes quite a few breaks in between every 10 steps. He is also talking again and smiling non-stop. What a great thing this is to have our little guy back. From what the doctors have told us, an infection in your blood stream is a very serious infection and completely drains your body and takes so much to fight it off. You add that the Rodivirus and his circumcision/ hydrocele surgery and you have a really bad combination. Poor kiddo is all I can say!

Nate and I took Beckham up to Iowa City on Friday for a slew of appointments (my mom was still here to watch Gwen thankfully). Labs were first, and let me tell you that it was sure nice that Beck still had the PICC line to draw from so that they he did not have to be poked half a dozen times to get the right amount a blood. After labs, the transplant team saw him. They were extremely pleased with how much better he looked in comparison to the beginning of the week. They are hoping that this illness is the kicker that will get us over this hump. So are we! As for now, their plan is to hopefully not see him until April, and in the meantime, we need to work on increasing his hemoglobin (which has gone up a small amount). We will have to keep trying to get Beck to take the Iron supplements and Iron vitamin. This is not an easy task as the vitamin tastes like a mouth full of blood and the supplement tastes like you are chewing on an iron bar. Nasty! I've tried flavoring it, adding it to food, giving with liquid...you name it, I've tried it. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

We also saw neurology on Friday. They gave us the news that Beckham for sure has some sort of clotting disorder. We do not know what his disorder is, but not matter what, the treatment would be the same of blood thinners. I hope that this does not mean that he will have to get shots twice a day for life...but it could. Aspirin treatment is not an option right now for Beckham since he is so small, but hopefully in the future he will be able to take that instead of Lovenox shots, which he will remain on until we meet with hematology again. All in all, the neurology team was very pleased with Beckham, but they want to have another MRI done in April to make sure that he has not signs of hyrocephalis, and to get him off of his seizure medicine.

Beck is now PICC line free and doing well. We sure want it to stay that way. Since August, Beck has not been out the hospital longer than 6 weeks. We are determined to beat that record!

Happy March to everyone. Bring on the warm weather is all that I can say!
-Us