Children's Hospital

We know that everyone has been anxiously awaiting an update on our Jeremy. On Saturday (9-24-11) morning we started to notice a red spot on Jeremy's belly button. By 8:00 PM the red spot had grown to the size of a half dollar, so we called the doctor. By the grace of God we decided to drive to the Children's Hospital North Campus for treatment, we were naive and thought it would be a simple shot and we would be sent home. Once we arrived they confirmed the infection in the belly button and admitted us to the North Campus for IV treatment. We were overcome by emotion as we awaited the results from the ultrasound and blood work. Thank God the infection remained isolated to the belly button and it was not in his blood stream, we were also thankful that the belly button was not connected to the bladder so we did not have to have surgery. We were optimistic that we would be able to come home on Tuesday (9-27-11). Then the culture from the infection came back and revealed that it was a staph infection. Since they are only able to treat patients at the North campus for 72 hours, Jeremy got an ambulance ride to the main campus to continue his antibiotic treatment. When we arrived at the Main Children's Hospital we were placed in isolation because they also feared that there could have been an E. coli infection as well. The culture results on Thursday confirmed that there was no E. coli, but the doctor team said that they wanted to treat the infection with IV antibiotics for 10 days. They also gave us a diagnosis, Jeremy has Omphalitis or infection of the umbilical cord stump. They were able to take him off of the high powered antibiotic and confirmed that Jeremy will need a total of 10 days of IV antibiotic treatment. We will be able to go home on Tuesday (10-4-11). Jeremy is responding very well to the antibiotics and he should be completely healed when we go home.

I think the biggest challenge for us now is balancing our attention between our sick baby and our 5 year old. Jeremy is in good hands with the medical staff. And between mom, dad, grandma and grandpa he is being held 23 hours per day, so he is a little spoiled. We also just learned that he is being removed from isolation so we can take him outside today for a walk.

Thank you to everyone for all of your love, support and prayers. We are looking forward to coming home soon with a healthy, spoiled baby!