First the Pinch

As you apply pressure with the needle, first there's the pinch, then the tug.

The stitches. Each pinch remains a surprise, in its inevitability, in its staccato repetition. With multiples of these filigrees, suddenly these ephemeral wisps bind together with a certainty.

Bo is on the 2nd day of a (hopefully) 7 day course of IV antibiotic treatment for the 1st confirmed line infection since starting Omegaven. He had one before. While I know this is a VERY low rate of infection compared to what the literature suggests, it is no less life-threatening.

So before your freak-out. Remember, we live this every day. The very real and imminent threat, and the very normal. Bo, for better or worse, is acting well and has no obvious signs of illness. No fever, no lethargy, no real change in demeanor. Something was a little off, and we had cultures run. As it turns out, he has MRSA(!). But it is currently vancomycin resistant, and we are hoping that the vanco does the trick.

Last week Bo was in a fashion show with 2 of his surgeon's kids. I stayed home with Ahn, who was napping. But we had not seen Dr. L since Bo's last line breakage over a year ago. And as it happens, Jose was able to chat with Dr. L as another dad at the Chalk the Walk. Then a few days later, we are asking him to allow us to treat a line infection from home, call the infusion company at 4:45pm on the Thursday of a long weekend.

Between his antibiotics and his TPN, he still has a 4 hour window of unconnected time. Which is exactly as long as the kindergarten day lasts. So he will start school on Wednesday. Hopefully he will finish his antibiotics on Thursday.

We were disappointed to learn that labs must be run on Sunday, cutting short any plans to visit my family across the state for the long weekend.

But we will be able to go to a friend's 5th birthday party, visit some friends at their lakehouse, and maybe even go to the local Pow Wow.