Update 8/12/09

I'm sure that the "update" title is usually an indicator of a hospital post for our little guy, so I'll just skip right to the point and say that Beck is back in the hospital for the same symptoms as his hospital stay a couple of weeks ago: puke, puke, and LOTS more puke. Yuck!

Beckham's very slow steroid taper began again last week and as it did, his body quickly showed signs of not being able to tolerate it with a loss of appetite and loads of puke. Yesterday his vomiting got out of control and we knew that he was destined for a stay at his second home....I mean the hospital, where he still remains and probably will remain for the rest of the week. The crazy part is that all of his labs in the ER were normal (except for showing that he was dehydrated): Hemoglobin - 12.9, Platelets (which did not clump) 290, WBC - normal (I can't remember the exact number), etc. Can you believe it? My baby boy....normal....who would have thought? All of this pretty much rules out a virus (hopefully) and the thought, again, is that his body is not tolerating being off of the steroids, but, just in case, the doctors are also ruling out everything else. This means blood work (to rule out CMV), GI doctors being called in for an abdominal ultrasound (which showed nothing out of the ordinary) and possibly more tests (looking for ulcers or other things that could have been caused by steroids), and the addition of the Endocrinology team.

Beck got a large dose of Cortisone at about 1:00 AM this morning and his steroid dose was increased with his morning meds to help with his nausea. This definitely seemed to do the trick as Beckham woke up at 5:00 AM as a crazy, hyper boy, ready to run down the hospital halls like a maniac. He was so crazy that we could almost not keep up with him with his trailing IV pole that was attached to his arm. After a while, he got so sick of being attached to the IV pole that he ripped his IV out of his arm again. Oh well. Lets hope he can keep up his fluid intake without the help of IV fluids.

The plan for now is to wait for the rest of his tests results and then go from there. The doctors are almost positive that Beckham is vomiting because of the steroid withdrawals, but they will make sure of the fact first. There is a test that can show if your body has whacked out cortisol levels (produced in the Adrenal Gland, which his steroids suppress), which would prove that Beck's vomiting is caused from his long term steroids use, but the test would for sure come back inaccurately positive because he has been on them for so long. But if Beck does not have issues anywhere else than the Endocrinologist would like to completely switch Beck from Prednisolone to Cortisone, and taper it slowly over months, which will be much easier on his body.

Also, I should mention that Beck had a consult with Hematology here in Des Moines and a couple of things came to light during that visit. 1 - That blood tests still showed that Beckham tests positive for an antibody in his system. 2 - That if he comes off of the steroids, he will run a HUGE risk of rebounding right back with the ITP and Hemolytic Anemia. 3 - The reason why his platelets always clump may be because his antibody is still attached to his platelets and cause them to clump. 4 - Beckham may not have Evans Syndrome even though he has most symptoms and criteria. And 5 - She (meaning the hematologist) believe (like the hem/onc docs in Iowa City) that Beck's ITP and Hemolytic Anemia was caused by his Tacro/Prograf (anti-rejection drug).

I think that I covered most of the needed information, but I could be wrong, but that could be because I spent most of last night in an ER, slept in a hospital bed with a crazy two year old that was attached to an IV that beeped all night, and was woken before 5:00 AM to a hyper kiddo that as ready to reek havoc wherever he went....and talk to his many friends on his Banana phone. So cute!