MRI Scheduled

The bacterial infection Andrew's dealing with is known as cellulitis. Cellulitis may be superficial, or it may affect deeper tissues. When cellulitis affects the deeper tissues, it may spread to lymph nodes and the bloodstream. Andrew will have a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) exam this evening to determine the extent of his cellulitis.

A Nasty Infection

We're back at Primary Children's Medical Center as Andrew has been admitted with a serious left arm infection. We're completely surprised (and frustrated) by this as he had been recovering so well from the break and vascular surgery he had in May.

Andrew began complaining of pain in his arm yesterday afternoon. Charlet took him to our pediatrician, who referred us to the PCMC ER. When we arrived, Andrew was running a high fever and had developed a small rash around the surgical scar on his left arm. By 11 pm, the rash had grown exponentially and the fever had not subsided. He was admitted late last night and began a treatment of IV antibiotics.

Today, we’ve met with many surgeons, docs, and specialists (infectious disease folks, vascular folks, orthopedic docs, tissue specialists, and pediatricians), each one trailed by three or four med students. They’re still not sure what the infection is, but have ruled out one or two of the worst case scenarios. Two more and we’re down to just a nasty skin infection; treatable by a two week cycle of IV antibiotics, to be administered in our home (yikes!).

We'll probably be here another day at least. And we're desperately hoping to avoid another surgery to explore and/or remove the infection.

July 4th

A little late but here is a photo from our front yard firework extravaganza. The kids had a good time.

I've also added a picassa album of images from the 4th & 5th of July. We celebrated Grandma LaRue's birthday at the Brigham city pool. All the family (Shawn & Lisa, Geoff & Ky, Beau & Nicki) was in town and it was nice to see everyone and have all the kids play together.