Friday, May 25, 2012

Hopefully the end of a book (or at least a chapter)

Jake's kidney numbers are back down - to merely "elevated".  We hope that he'll be discharged today.  He's stil overcoming the flu, so he's been asleep most of the day.  That's very unusual for him, because he usually gets up fairly early and refuses naps.

Since he's getting over the flu, we won't have company for a few more days.  Since he's recovering from the biopsy, that means no swimming or exertion for 10 days. Those two factors probably combine to form a festival of Lego and video games. 

I'm hoping to finsish cleaning the garage this weekend, so that may lead to some arcade gaming with me and Jake.  Otherwise, we'll sit on the couch and hang out and play games.  Sadly, the games reflected a better parenting option than his other preference - a nonstop series of Family Guy and American Dad episodes from Netflix.  It's the better of two alternatives.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Staying the course - in a "happy mood"

Jake just finished another kidney biopsy.  He's much more drugged from the anesthesia than usual.  The procedure was delayed until 1pm, and you can't eat before the procedure, so maybe the emply stomach made him more susceptible to happy/giddy/woozy/goofy bliss.

I doubt that we'll have the biopsy culture back before tomorrow evening.  Since Jake will be finishing a three day course of IV antibiotic and steroids, I think the plan was (as of last night) that we'd get discharged late tomorrow morning.  Hopefully we won't have to go back in after we get home (which is what happened last time).  He's no longer running the big fever that he had when he came in yesterday.  Kidney blood tests are the same as yesterday - crappy, but no worse.

I've tried to avoid bringing any big Lego sets to him, because once he builds them they aren't very transportable.  He takes pride in his work, so he agrees that he shouldn't start anything big until he gets home.  Since he's got the flu, we aren't having visitors, which is unusual for us.  He's killing time with TV, because I've had struggles getting his iPad to talk to the hospital wifi.  Apparently this is a recognized iPad issue involving the inability to handle wifi networks that start with an authorization/redirect page.

The 5th grade class is supposed to call him via speakerphone this afternoon.  I won't be back in time to hear it, but it should be cute.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

A few days back in the hotel

Since our last hospital visit, Jake has been on large doses of medications.  He’s been in and out of school because the side effects of those medications.  Over the last few days, his blood test results for kidney function had finally improved to the point where he was back to where he was supposed to be.  Then…

He developed some flu like symptoms yesterday, and by today he was at a 103 degree fever.  When we took him to the doctor, his kidney blood test levels were terrible (far worse than they were two days ago), and he needed to be readmitted to the hospital.  He’s on IV antibiotics for the fever (to make sure it’s not a blood infection), and will be for at least another 36 hours.  We hope to be out by Friday.  If the blood tests still show kidney problems tomorrow, he’ll have a kidney biopsy again tomorrow, and we’ll see what’s going on.

I bought him the Lego chess set, and there will be some games later on.  He’s got his/my iPad, and I’ve got my 3 year old underpowered netbook so I can attempt some Zune streaming music.