Not too Bad...

Kirsten is back at Children's with Madeleine but before departing HSC, she spoke with one of our long term doctors-- Dr. Bloom and we learned the following:

- Madeleine's mucus culture came back positive with bacteria. However, that doesn't mean that there is a bacterial infection-- it just means that bacteria is present. Since there is bacteria on everyone's skin, this isn't very surprising. Furthermore, they're doubtful that there is a bacterial infection.
- The Complete Blood Count (CBC) came back and it indicated that it is likely a viral infection that Madeleine is fighting. I don't fully understand how they can tell but evidently, the CBC gives you a count of red blood cells, white blood cells, and also white blood cell "bands." The bands are the confusing part but by analyzing the "trends" of the bands they can tell if the infection is likely to be bacterial or viral. I'd provide more information but that requires an MD.
- Given Madeleine's symptoms-- increased watery output in the ostomy bag (laymen's term is dairhea) and intermittent temperatures, Madeleine has an old fashioned case of the common cold. Given the diarrhea and danger of dehydration, they're going to closely monitor Madeleine at Children's and then will transfer her back to HSC once she's stable.

We don't have a specific timeframe but if we have to guess, it's probably going to be between 4-7 days. In other words, this is just a temporary setback... at least at this point. We're still frustrated/angry/blah, blah, blah but in the grand scheme of things, this doesn't appear to be that big of a deal so we're also thankful.

Thanks for checking in... I'll try to keep updating as we learn more.

Brent and Kirsten