Update: this is NOT a tummy bug!

After my post on Friday evening I had a fitful night's sleep and arrived at the hospital on Saturday morning to find a smiling and happy Adam and relatively calm Daddy in the room. Turns out Adam had slept the better part of 5pm to 9am the next morning and obviously felt better for it!

The nurse told me that they had him on an IV antibiotic, and I asked if this was because his neutrophils were low (the original plan was to put him on IV antibiotics if his neutrophils were low as they would have to protect him where his own body can't). No, she said, it's because of the bug that grew in the blood cultures. So fast? I asked. Yes, turns out that the more of a bug you have in your blood, the faster it will grow. Where normal blood cultures take two or more days to come back, Adam's took a few hours. That means that there is a lot of this bug in his blood, so they had to take quick action.

Not only that, but the type of bug is also a consideration. Turns out Adam has what is called Stenotrophomonas maltophilia. Go here if you want to read about it. It's not usually found in humans--great. However, it's not usually virulent, which is great too. It's susceptible to a simple oral antibiotic that Adam is already on two days a week (as prophylaxis), but to be extra safe they wanted to keep him on IV antibiotics for the weekend. And he had a blood transfusion today to boost his low blood counts, so when we do get him home he'll be better than ever.

So by Saturday noon Adam was much better, happy and pretty much back to normal. And because of that Brian and I went ahead and headed off to Edinburgh for the Black Keys concert we had planned to go to months ago. Only we had to very quickly set up a network of people to watch Adam at the hospital for us, in addition to the couple of friends who stayed at home with Caleb and Agnes! All went very well and we completely enjoyed the break. After the chaos of the week five hours on the train to talk and read, four hours enjoying a blisteringly good music show and nine whole hours of sleep was bliss. Bliss.

Again, pics to follow--bed now for this mommy!