Infectious Disease

Parker has been more alert and awake today than ever before. I have been sitting by his bed for a few hours, just took and break and sent James in to give him an update on the NFL Draft. When James was talking about it before, Parker looked a little bewildered at first, then settled in and just listened. Not sure how he feels about it, he can't talk yet.

The infectious disease doctor came in. Of all the four doctors I've spoken to today, he had the most rewarding news. The second doctor I spoke with, the Critical Care Specialist, once again slashed all my hopes to the ground.

He's a very, very sick young man and Dr. Garcia may not be able to go back in there without killing him!

Can I mention that he said that by Parker's open door with Parker wide awake? So no doubt he was terrified and crying when I got into the room. This continues to be a minute by minute process. They said it can take a long, long time for him to recover from this. They don't really define "long, long time" and won't when asked.

Then the infectious disease guy came by. He is the weekend doc so not completely familiar with Parker's history. But he gave me the only shining light of the day. He said the VRE infection, while still there, is showing up in the cultures with plastic, meaning they took the cultures through the tube attached to him and there is going to be bits of bacteria within those tubes that will come through as well. So not a perfect indication of how much is still in his system. His white cell count is down to 9.8 (yea! yea! Double-Triple yea!) and although he has a fever, the pancreatitis could still be causing that.

In a nutshell, what I gather from him is that Parker's body is working to fight everything and it is a matter of time, unless some other thing pops up. Which it could.... I have to keep myself prepared for that because it has been quiet for a few days now.

I think the biggest risk at this point is if another cyst develops and gets infected. I don't know how long it has to go before it is considered safe. This is a chronological sequence of events:

* March 10th Parker called an ambulance from his apartment and was admitted to South Austin Hospital. At that time they thought it was a gall bladder issue. The next day, when I arrived, they had determined it was severe acute pancreatitis.
* March 16th Parker had his first CT Scan which showed the pancreas was still inflamed, but did not show any fluid build up or pockets, which would indicate a brewing cyst.
* March 23rd Parker went home, thinking the pancreatitis was under control and he only needed to have gall bladder surgery to be sure it didn't happen again.
* April 2nd Parker had the MRI requested by the surgeon, Dr. Garcia, which showed the softball size pseudo cyst, plus two others that were smaller in size. He was admitted into Seton Hospital that day. We were hoping he wouldn't require surgery, we were waiting for the cyst to either go away on its own, or to mature which would allow them to do surgery more successfully.
* April 13th Parker had another CT Scan which showed the cyst was infected, badly. That was the night they did the first surgery.

I can't go on from there because I still can't re-visit April 14th. I have to keep thinking positive.