Good News!!!!!!!

Wow has Shawn been naughty! Leaving you all hanging on that last post. So lets fill you in.

Ok, so his infection was pretty nasty and he had some ugly fevers the first couple of days. They took a sample of his Cerebral Spinal Fluid (CSF) in the ER and then they take a new sample every day. Each day the look at the sample in the microscope to see if the can see any bacteria. I think of this like the fast Strep throat test a person might get at the doctor. Its kinda a rough estimate on how the infection is doing. Then they put the sample in a petri dish and grow it for 2 days. This is a much more definitive test. So the night we came in, of course they found nasty bugs through the microscope and started him on a broad spectrum antibiotic. However, after 2 days, when the petri dish was ripe, they could tell what the specific bacteria was, and then they switch to a much more specific antibiotic. And that's just what they did. The nice thing about the specific drug is its not as hard on the rest of his system (e.g., wiping out all the good digestive bacteria in his gut which gives him nasty diarrhea.

So usually, they expect a pretty quick response to the antibiotics. But Cole was responding slower than they liked. So they ran some tests to see if he had any pockets of infection in his heart (ultrasound on his heart) or in his ventricles or his skull bone marrow (MRI). And guess what?!!!!, We just got the news this Thursday morning, all tests came up negative!!!! We are very excited about that because they were talking about some pretty nasty sounding procedures to clean out the infection if it was in his bone. Whew!!!!!!

So the typical procedure when a person gets a shunt infection is:

1. They externalize the shunt (done)

2. They begin collecting daily CSF samples and testing them.

3. When they find a 2 day test that is clean, we begin counting down for 10 days of more antibiotics

4. The reinternalize his shunt and then we go home the next day or 2 days later.

So we are hoping, since yesterday's petri dish sample is clean so far, that it will be clean tomorrow and we will start our 10 day countdown.

Some more good news. We were able to reschedule our vacation to Bear Lake for the end of September. Should still be some good sailing that time of year.

An interesting story: A couple of days into our recent stay, we ran into someone Shawn used to go to High School with, Dave Topham (and his wife Victoria). They also served in the same LDS mission in Tampa Florida and went to the U of Utah at the same time. But they had not seen each other in probably 15-20 years. Turns out they have a little girl in the hospital . . . 3 DOORS DOWN FROM US! Also, poor girl, has an abscess in her brain and so has an EVD (the external shunt just like Cole). Also, they are only 3 months different in ages. How about that for some coincidences. Its nice to have people you can commiserate with. They are great people. And we got to meet their adorable 16 yr old daughter last night.

(Guess what? I'm playing with different font colors)

Yesterday, Grandma Jackie came up and watch Cole all morning so Shawn could go in and run his Wednesday group. When he called to let her know he was on his way back up, she said she and Cole had been laughing and singing all morning. He started laughing at the sound of Shawn's voice on the phone. So we are seeing the signs that he is feeling much better. Right now he is playing with his mylar balloon and we are listening to Otis Redding's Knock on Wood.

So his recovery from the infection has been a little slower then we would have liked, but, he is definitely responding and getting better. Thanks again to Jim and Kris and their family for taking care of the dogs while we are gone. And yesterday there were 3 people from our neighborhood fighting over who got to mow our lawn. We are so incredibly blessed and we express our gratitude to Heavenly Father every night for each and everyone of you.