Legendary Twins: Evie is Back Home (still sick)

Evie is back home, but she's recovering from a virus so the surgery will be delayed until it's out of her system. I brought her home Sunday night after her weekend stay at Christ Hospital since last Thursday night. Sorry about the lack of update on the blog here but she has been a real struggle (fussy, crying) every evening from the time I get home from work until she crashes around 11PM (and I usually end up crashing from mental exhaustion shortly thereafter!)

She was transported to Christ Hospital last Thursday evening after being admitted into Edward's ER. After taking a blood sample, the doctors noticed that her white blood cell count was high, which led them to believe she was possibly fighting an infection. This had to be confirmed because she could not have surgery if she was sick. It took about 24 hours to determine that she had an upper respiratory virus called "Human Metapneumovirus" ("meta-new-omo") aka "hMPV." It's similar to the more severe infection called RSV (for which Evie gets monthly inoculations against) and is common in infants.

It's a fairly new virus (discovered in 2001 in the Netherlands) and has become more common. Apparently every child under the age of five will have had it at some point. We didn't even realize she was sick as she didn't seem to have any physical symptoms, although she did develop an increase in... shall we say, mucus production over the weekend. The nursing staff didn't know what kind of infection Evie might have, so everyone that saw her had to wear a gown, mask and gloves. Although the symptoms are not too bad, the unnerving part about the virus is that she could have gotten it from anyone, because the carrier might have had the virus, but was not sick from it. So now we're even more paranoid about people seeing her in an attempt to limit your exposure to anything.

The doctors couldn't give her anything to directly treat the virus other than "preventative maintenance," i.e., making sure that she's eating, getting rest, keeping her nasal passages clear, not running a fever, ect. So, we I was able to bring her home Sunday night. Sharon I are very grateful to Grandma and Nana Cermak for being able to spend so much time keeping Evie company in the hospital (so sorry about the gowns and masks you had to wear all day!), and for Grandma Cordes being able to stop by on the weekend to help with Gavin. We're truly blessed to have such wonderful and supportive family members around us!

Because she is sick, she cannot have the surgery right now (although they were prepared to do it on Friday before the doctors learned of the virus). So, we're still waiting for now; these ups and downs are harder than anything else right now.

Gavin has his first consultation with the pediatric urologist tomorrow so look for an update about that soon. He's doing well and seems to be completely recovered, although we're still giving him medicine (that causes him to have some interesting diapers).

Evie and me in Edward's ER, waiting for the transport team to Christ Hospital.

Edward's Pediatric ER is pretty nice! I'm on a first name basis with the nurses.

We had a serendipitous encounter in Edward's ER last Thursday, in that Evie's nurse had been a heart patient of Dr. Ilbawi (Evie's heart surgery) 28 years ago!! Our nurse had been born with a congenital heart defect that Dr. Ilbawi first worked on five days after she was born. She has since had five heart surgeries because she has an artificial valve that needs to be replaced every so often.

It was amazing getting to talk with her because the long term effects of Evie's condition is something that Sharon and I have been very worried about. This woman played competitive sports in high school and college (golf, swimming and softball) and while she doesn't run any marathons, she feels great. I feel like God gave us this chance meeting to help give us some peace because Sharon and I were complete wrecks on Thursday night.

The transport team was very nice. Evie had been crying in my arms for over an hour, but she stopped crying for all these guys (who thought she was a perfect little angel).