12/01/2009

Where did November go??? I'm still trying to figure that one out. It's late. I'm sleepy. I'm going to try to make this quick.

I was at Chi's bedside for most of the day while Miss Emma played at Aunt Joy's house with Edan and Joelle. It doesn't tend to be an encouraging when the attending physician (Engle) supervising your child's care pulls up a chair next to you for a chat. He and the nurse practitioner stopped by this afternoon. He started by saying, "Well, I have SOME good news." (great, what's the bad...) The EEG that they did yesterday morning showed mild encephalopathy (which apparently mild is okay?) and no signs of seizure activity. WOO HOO! One less thing to be added to Malachi's ever-growing list of concerns.

HOWEVER, he was able to talk with the cardiovascular surgeon (Brown) who operated on Chi. Dr. Engle was able to hear first-hand from Dr. Brown that, in fact, Malachi does not have a thymus. The thymus is important because it produces T-cells which is a major component of your immune system. Hematology will consult probably tomorrow to do a full immunologic evaluation. They will also check his parathyroid hormone level with a blood test. So please be in prayer that the hematologist will be able to find, diagnose, and have a proper plan of treatment to best serve Malachi. Dr. Engle had also mentioned combining the choanal atresia and nissen fundoplication while he is under general anesthetic on Friday. Due to the recent heart surgery and the length required of a combined surgery, we decided it would be best to keep the surgeries spread out and deal with them one by one.

On the home front, it should be a fun next couple of days as I will be spending most of the next two days with Emerson since most of the weekend will be spent at the hospital with Malachi during his surgery and recovery.