March 18, 2006

The discussion of steroids has been put on hold for a time as Zachary hit another little bump in the road. He gave us quite a scare. His white blood cell count was a slightly high on Thursday which was indicative of infection so they did cultures of his trach aspirate (fluid from his vent tube), urine and blood. He wasn't acting sick so the docs didn't start antibiotics until they got results from the cultures. Friday morning we got the bad news that he had infection in both his lungs and blood. Staph in the blood is what scared us the most. Fortunately they caught the infection early and started antibiotics as soon as they got the culture results. He'll be on antibiotics for probably 10 days this time. He still looks good, he's moving around, opening his eyes and doesn't seem to be as sick as the last time. Mom even thought she saw a little smile... maybe (or maybe wishful thinking).

He has continued to do well with his feedings. He's up to 25cc/3hrs and will hopefully continue to tolerate them as they increase his volume. He weighed last at 6 lbs. 12 oz. His tummy looks great. His incision is healing very well. He still looks like he swallowed a football but maybe a smaller one.

Because of his infections his ventilator settings haven't changed much. They went up a little on Friday (he wasn't breathing over the vent) but they were able to wean him back down a bit on Saturday as he feel a little better and was doing more of his own breathing. We're still praying that he'll avoid the need for steroids. As in all things with Zach, only time will tell. Thanks for keeping up with our little guy and thanks to all who are fasting this Sunday. We love you!