a better day

This is how Malachi was for most of his morning! He has a horrible yeast infection on his bum (most likely due to the antibiotics he was previously on). Our nurse today left him open to air. You can see at the bottom of the picture a little blue tube, this is some oxygen blow-by. He was a much happier baby without a diaper irritating him...
It was nice to see him at least content. I think he "almost" smiled... not quite, he's still pretty uncomfortable, but the rash is at least better, his color is better, the lymph nodes aren't nearly as hard, and his skin feels like the proverbial baby's bottom (which is much better than the state of Chi's current bottom).

A quick shot of his PICC line on the left leg and his "mankini" (as the nurse called it) to keep him from peeing all over the place.

AND, last but not least, just before his six-month birthday this popped through! He loves gnawing on daddy's fingers!

Oh, and the current update:
Malachi's white cell count is still super high. Yesterday, his white count was up to 42,000--crazy high. So they rechecked his blood count again today and it was down to 34,000. This is still really high, but at least it's not still rising. Also, it has been suggested that we should consider a Port-A-Cath for Malachi due to his lack of access. They do not want to send him home with the PICC line still in due to how much of a risk for infection he is. Basically, he would need to be scheduled for surgery and this device would be implanted under his skin. Gross. The only problem is that Malachi is running out of areas to place a line and in the case of an emergency, he NEEDS access--and fast.