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What would the summer be...


 ...without a stay (or two) at CHOP.


Sadly, Garrett was admitted on Friday evening. We saw this coming, as he has really deteriorated over the past two weeks. He’s had a lot of abdominal pain and was going to the bathroom a lot, so he naturally stopped eating and drinking (his defense mechanism when he feels like this). He’s lost a lot of weight, pretty much all he earned back after the colectomy, and his bloodwork was concerning enough that the Friday afternoon outpatient visit quickly became an inpatient stay. (Thankfully, we have a nice, spacious single this time.)


We had hoped that he had just caught the stomach virus that Gibson had, and that he would start to bounce back from it, but this has graduated to a larger infection. Last night’s MRI confirmed that he has inflammation around the ileostomy reversal, but more concerning is that there are abscesses. Since the abscesses are small, (≤ 2cm), they moved him from oral to IV antibiotics to see if that reduces them completely and kills off the infection. If not, then other options will be discussed over the next few days to remove them.


Garrett is at a low point right now, this has been a rough couple of weeks. We were all really hopeful at the start of the summer that after the ostomy reversal in June and some time to adjust to it, he’d be back to a bit of an easier life, having a fun August and start of the new school year. Sadly, that hasn’t been the case, and he’s now old enough to realize that his life won’t be like his friends’ or his brother’s. It breaks my heart that he has started to understand that.


I told the doctors that he needs to be out of here by the 8th to start 2nd grade with all his friends, and they put that down as the goal. They are really great, and we’re very thankful to have CHOP nearby.


More to come...


 

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