Progress Update

Rowan had a fever a few days ago.  They drew blood out of his IV and tested it.  It grew bacteria, meaning that he had an infection in his blood stream.  Anytime that happens in the hospital, you get 10 days of IV administered antibiotics.  He’s had it for 3 days, which means Rowan will need to be in the hospital for at least another week, unless later results say there is an antibiotic he can take for it through his NG tube.  Every day, blood is drawn from that IV and re-tested for bacteria.  So far, the blood drawn yesterday has not shown any bacterial growth, meaning that the treatment is likely going to rid him of this issue.  He also hasn’t had a fever for over 24 hours now.

Rowan also had his “blow-by” turned off today.  They want to make sure he can recover from low blood oxygen levels in times of coughing fits or angry fits without it.  He had one “de-SAT” spell today that they turned the blow by back on for, and when he recovered, we realized it hadn’t been turned on correctly and wasn’t actually doing anything.  So, still unconcerned at this point.

And on to today’s adventure: Upper GI and Small Bowel Follow-through

So today they gave Rowan some Barium, and took x-ray pictures of it as it moved through his system to make sure he doesn’t have severe reflux or any problems tracking.  They didn’t suspect any issues but because he’d had a history of trouble they wanted to map out how he was doing before discharge.  He did fine.

The cool part – when they came to get him for his appointment, the tech said “ok, so Mom, are you going to carry him.”

WHAT?!?!?!  That’s right, I got to wrap him up and physically carry him downstairs to the imaging center.  Like a normal stinking kid! No hospital bed. In fact, we put him in the infant carrier between his images (every 15 minutes). Like he was almost ready to go home. Sure, the technician did have the sensitivity to say something like “he looks really blue…is he supposed to be that blue?” Um, yes. He’s actually looking pretty normal today.

BUT, it was nice. It was normal-ish.

Rowan also has some other normal tests to go through today.

AND NOW – the crappy news.  Our insurance said they would not cover transfer back to Tulsa.  We cannot stay in St. Louis.  We are going to have to leave St. Louis without our son and come back up when we can or when it is time to discharge him.  We have to be back in Tulsa March 1st.  We are pretty certain there is no way that Rowan will be able to come with us.