Not so fast...

Remember that October 20th surgery date? Well, that ain't happening.

Here's the story...

Last Thursday (actually 2 Thursdays ago now) Zach had some blood and other bodily fluids drawn for his pre-op lab work.

That Friday Janine got a frantic call from Zach's surgeon's office because the test for clotting ability of his blood came back with a reading off the charts. Apparently most hemophiliacs have better clotting than Zach does, and the mere act of blinking his eyes would probably cause him to bleed to death...

Of course the fact that Zach has never had any issues like this before led me to believe that somebody must have screwed up the test. Still, Janine had to run him back to the hospital to have the test done again. What do you know - this time it came back just fine.

Apparently because the blood was drawn from Zach's port, it was contaminated by Heparin - an anti-clotting drug that they use to flush out the port at each infusion.

Okay, well that's fixed - we're ready to go - or maybe not...

So Janine gets another call last Friday that Zach's nasal swab came back positive for MRSA. This is one of those anti-biotic resistant flesh eating type bacteria. Lovely. Apparently this bug can live quite happily in the nasal passages for years without any ill effects to the host. It's actually quite common in the medical field, and usually doesn't cause any major problems.

However, if it gets into the bloodstream it can be fatal. So, the bacteria needs to be cleared up before any type of surgery can take place. (Seems sensible to me)

The surgeon's office referred us to an infectious disease specialist for treatment. Of course he doesn't have any appointments available until the 30th...

Now, a couple of things to think about there...

First, if you are an infectious disease specialist, wouldn't you want patients in as soon as possible? Since they could you know - INFECT PEOPLE. Of course that could be a good way of ensuring a steady stream of patients... What's that you say Mr. Townsley? Your doctor says you have Tuberculosis? Well let's see, we can squeeze you in sometime in December. In the meantime spend as much time as possible in crowded places - malls, airplanes, schools - places like that.

Now the second thing to consider is this: Is this the doctor's office you want to be waiting in? Surrounded by people with INFECTIOUS DISEASES. ARGHHH!!! Everybody would be looking at me like I'm strange because I'd be sitting there in a bio-hazard suit. People don't go to an infectious disease specialist because they have a cold. You know these people gotta be carrying around some type of superbug that a normal doctor is afraid to deal with.

One thing I do have to say is that any doctor that specializes in infectious diseases has to have balls of steel. (Or a really good supply of bio-hazard suits)

In any case, we weren't up for waiting two weeks so we got Zach an appointment with his pediatrician for this morning. He got Zach set up with a 10 day cycle of medication that should get the MRSA cleared out. We'll get the nasal swab done again next Thursday to be sure.

After that we'll re-schedule the surgery.

My new saying... "MPS - it's not just a job, it's an adventure".

The good egg

As I mentioned before, Josh is a good egg.

Now, there are times that either his mother, myself, or both of us have to suppress the temptation to strangle him - but overall he's a pretty good kid.

Why am I getting into this subject? Well, it has occurred to me that with all the things we have to deal with for Zach, and the fact that Brandon pretty much hogs as much attention as possible, that Josh sometimes gets the short end of the stick.

I know we're far too quick to get on his case at times about the typical stuff - homework, keeping his room clean, getting along with his brothers, etc. Actually, he's probably far "better" of a kid than we realize. He always helps out with Zach and Brandon when we need an extra set of hands, he'll take care of chores around the house (even if we do have to ask more than once at times...), he gets good grades... I guess we should be thankful.

He's kind of in a rough situation I guess. Zach's condition is something we have never hid from Josh. He knows all about MPS, and sees its effect on Zach every day. It's not fair that he has to deal with these type of issues so young in life, but it wouldn't be fair (or even possible actually) to keep him in the dark. His teachers always remark how mature he is, and how conscientious he is about his classmates feelings. I guess we're not doing too bad of a job raising him.

Josh does inject humor into our lives though - he's good at that.

Although he has mostly outgrown it, Josh has the habit of sleepwalking. Since I'm one of those people who never seem to go to bed before 1 or 2 in the morning, I'm often awake to witness these nocturnal adventures. Well, without going into too many stories let's just say that preparing to walk out the front door to go to school (backpack in hand) while wearing nothing but pajama bottoms, and peeing in the trashcan in his room because he thought he was in the bathroom just scrape the surface.

Personally, I laugh my ass off when he does this stuff. He denies that it ever happens. One of these days I'm going to have the video camera charged when he goes walking and I'm going to post it on Youtube for his future girlfriends to see.

I was sitting with the wife watching TV the other day. All of a sudden we start to hear clapping coming from the bathroom, which was occupied by Josh.

Now, I'm not sure about you, but I have never done anything in the bathroom that I felt was worthy of letting out a cheer. A sigh of relief perhaps - but never a cheer. Not even when I managed to install a whirlpool tub in the bathroom did I let out a cheer. I'm pretty sure there wasn't even a minor home improvement project being worked on in there while Josh was clapping. Not replacing the caulk, not hanging a new shower curtain, nothing. Just normal bodily functions.

When he came out, you know I had to find out what was going on....

Me: Josh, let me ask you... why were you clapping in there?
Josh: It was the theme from Star Wars.
Me: No, not what - why?
Josh: I don't know - just wanted to I guess.
Me: Well, may the force be with you then.

Sunday was the first night I actually let Josh ride the exercise bike. Man was that a mistake.

Little booger rode for more than an hour and covered about 13 miles. The only reason he stopped is because I made him.

You see, I was afraid he was going to injure himself. No matter what you think, I was not worried about the fact that he rode for an hour and then hopped off the bike like it was nothing, and how that might make me look bad. Nope, not that.

He did have one advantage though. He wasn't trying to balance a tasty midnight snack on the handlebars while riding.

I'm sure that accounts for the difference.