Friday Afternoon - A Josiah Update

Hello Everyone

Here's what's been happening in Josiah's life this week. Josiah has had a great time, chowing down on carrots (enjoys them so much that rice cereal is no longer an option) spent a few moments on his stomach (first time ever) and is always demostrating more head control, awareness, interaction and managemant of his airway - it's been a really encouraging week for the most part. He's enjoying sucking/playing with his thumb in his mouth, and gets totally excited about shaking the maraca with daddy!

Results came back from Josiah's mid-week hormone test and as far as the doctors can tell, there was nothing that would explain Josiah's edema. So back to the drawing board with one less option! (I haven't heard of any options beyond the hormone theory, so this could get really interesting). Josiah isn't as roller coaster-ish with his puffiness as he used to be. He is receiving 'vitamin m' daily instead of every 3 days which has allowed him to be a consistent mild edemic - and that's good I guess. The doctors are continuing to lower his direutic doses which so far is going OK.

On the bad side of things, Josiah is positive for MRSA. It's a staph bacteria which 30% of the population has (and most of them don't even know it). Josiah isn't showing any symptoms - he just has it on his skin. In adult hospitals it's not a big deal, but in children hospitals patients with MRSA are isolated. The only problem is the TCU has no more isolation rooms available. Heh. This is a difficult situation for the doctors and staff to solve. It may mean that Josiah is stuck in a room by himself for the next 4-6 months which will drive his parents absolutely looney and be really hard on the staff, but we'll see what happens. Please pray about that.

Grace & Peace
- Andrew, Marie & Josiah