Update on Ethan

Ethan is now over 9 weeks into his TOBI treatments. We had about 2 1/2 weeks left of treatments. A week after treatments end we will go back in for another culture to see if the pseudomonas is gone. We went in about 2 weeks ago and it came back as rare pseudomonas. It's not completely gone yet, so they prescribed more Cipro antibiotic for 2 weeks and we are little more than halfway through that.

June is looking to be very busy for us. We are going to Avila Beach on vacation the first week. The following week we will have Ethan's next culture and clinic. The week after that we will get results back from the culture. If the culture is negative for pseudomonas Ethan will have a brochoscopy to look inside his lungs for any inflammation, buildup and pseudomonas. He will also have a sample taken. If the culture is positive he will most likely be admitted to the hospital for 7-10 days for IV antibiotics. I can say with certainty that June will not be any fun, especially if Ethan is admitted. We'll see how it all plays out, but hopefully everything will turn out great!

A Mother's Day Celebration

For Mother's Day this year we celebrated with my family the day before at our house. We ate hamburgers, hot dogs, chips, and had watermelon. This year was extra special because my grandma was here visiting from Arkansas. We had an eventful day, including a slip 'n slide and wading pool for the kids.

My nieces had a blast on the slip 'n slide and Ethan didn't want to get out of the pool. The weather was perfect and in the mid 80's. We even had a small fire breakout when Grandma's homemade card got to close to the gas stove and lit up. Luckily, my niece smelled it and my brother-in-law still had shoes on so he stomped it out. Whew!

This year my sister and I got my mom a necklace with scrabble tiles that had each of her 5 grandchildren's photo on them. She loved it! Ken had already treated me and his mom to a photo session with my friend Lauren for Mother's Day so I didn't really expect anything else. I can't wait for those photos to be ready to view. He surprised me with a pedicure and a very thoughtful card. Ethan even made me a card! It was cute and had his stickers on the inside. Overall, it was a very relaxing afternoon and the next day Ken, Ethan and I headed to the San Francisco Aquarium for some family time. More about that later.

Update on Ethan

I know I've neglected my blog over the last 6 weeks. Our family life has been crazy. Here's an update on what's going on with Ethan's health. As you know Ethan cultured pseudomonas in March and we've spent the last 8 weeks fighting it. He's been on Tobramycin via nebulizer twice a day and at the beginning was on an oral antibiotic called Cipro for two weeks. Last Monday we went in for Ethan to be cultured again at the halfway mark. His results came in on Saturday showing rare pseudomonas. Although this is an improvement from moderate growth, it's still not gone. We've been given the instructions to begin Cipro again for two weeks, continue TOBI until it's finished in 4 weeks, then reculture him 5 weeks from now. If the culture is negative they will do a brochoscopy to see if it is really gone. Sometimes cultures don't pick up everything especially in small children who don't usually give them a good sputum culture. If it is positive he will most likely be admitted to the hospital for IV antibiotics. My guess is we'd be in the hospital for a week or two. It's hard to imagine how that stay is going to be with a two year old. I hope we don't have to see how it is. We are hopeful that this last bit of treatment will get the rest of the pseudomonas, but also a little discouraged, especially since he never had any symptoms of the pseudomonas to begin with. We figured it would be easier to fight because it hadn't been there long. For now, all we can do is start the Cipro and continue treatments, then see how the next culture turns out. It's especially hard on me since I've always been a planner and I hate not knowing what's coming next. This is forcing me to let it go and let life happen. Over the next couple of days I'll try to come back and post some pictures of Ethan.