The Bravest of Them All

"I am the bravest of them all". That is what Landon said to me when he got home from his testing yesterday...it was so cute.  I immediately responded with "you absolutely are the bravest 4 year old I know". I was expecting him to be upset with me because I purposefully did not tell him that they were going to do another blood draw for obvious reasons. Thankfully he wasn't and the fact that I promised him a toy at Target probably helped my cause.

 My poor husband gets the blood draw duties.  I figure it is probably easier to have my husband hold him down then a bunch of strangers.  He said he did so well.  At first he got really upset and it took another male nurse besides my husband to hold him still, but once they got it going he was ok.  I was so proud of him.  The first thing he said to his bff at school was, "Look Parker, I got another needle yesterday" and Parker responded like most boys do by saying, "how cool".  I did notice Landon's face had a little bit of a confused look on it, because in his mind you could tell that he was thinking that there was absolutely nothing cool about it whatsoever, but he just gave him his beautiful smile and they went on building legos.  It was just another example of how innocent children are and it breaks my heart that he is still not well.

What we know...

It isn't much. We do know he does not have any masses visible on ultrasound around his major organs in his abdomen (big exhale), but his initial blood counts have come back and his Sed count (inflammation) has risen. This is not particularly good.  This means that there is still a very significant infection in his body that is getting worse and we still don't know where it is located.  My pediatrician has officially handed his case over to an Infectious Disease doctor to decide what the next steps are. I am very glad he made this choice on his own because that was going to be my next request.

My pediatrician told me that he went over everything with this new doctor. This ID doctor and my pediatrician have agreed to try and treat it as a sinus infection with a resistant strain of a specific type of pneumonia bacteria(didn't write down what the specific name was). We are starting a new heavy duty antibiotic and he will be getting a CT scan of his sinuses on Friday.  We will then go see the ID doctor next week and I believe he will take more blood.  If the CT scan is negative and Sed rate is still elevated  then they will do a CT scan of his chest.  This is a huge process in itself.  It involves sedation, IV and injectable dye.  I really hope he keeps up this brave mentality because unfortunately he is going to need it if we keep coming up without any answers.

I keep praying we don't have to go that route and this new round of antibiotics will do the trick.  I have been a mess lately and trying not to show the kids that I am worried.  Unfortunately, through Logan's death, I have perfected the "everything is great" smile, and I have found myself resorting back to it lately for my kids sake and everyone around me, but I hate it.  I still live in the "expect the worst" type of mind set where my husband is trying to get me to be the opposite.  Unfortunately I think that mindset died along with Logan, and to be honest, I don't know if I will ever get it back.  But, with that being said, I will dig deep and do my best to be positive for Landon because it isn't his fault I have these issues. Who knows...maybe after all this is over, and it goes in our favor, I may get a little of what I lost 16 1/2 months ago back.

My Brave boy <3