Aubrey is not doing well. There seem to be myriad issues and just like practicing law isn’t like the Good Wife or Perry Mason, practicing medicine is nothing like House or The Good Doctor. Despite having the best possible care, the doctors aren’t sure what is wrong with him. His belly is swollen, but so is his entire body, even his toes. His activity is low. His white blood cell count is really high. He hasn’t been urinating like he should (his skill has always been peeing). He also hasn’t been very good at pooping today.
He is no longer red, but he’s also very pale. You can tell that his belly is puffy and his little toes are like tiny sausages.
The doctors are very attentive and have taken an aggressive approach. He has been on antibiotics for a couple of days, but they’ve changed the antibiotic to something stronger that fights a broader spectrum of bacteria. They are giving him more fluids and have inserted a tube into his belly (through his mouth) that will help relieve some of the gas in his tummy. They have put him on dopamine to help him urinate and given him glycerin to help him poop. He also has had a few x-rays to look at his belly and intestines. Those have come back showing no concerns. They have drawn blood to grow for a culture to try to identify the bacteria causing the infection. They have done this twice already, but nothing has grown. The doctor explained this may be because they can only take 1ml of blood at a time because he’s so small. In adults, they take 10ml to do a proper culture. It may be that nothing has grown because the sample size is too small.
If he gets worse, they may consider doing surgery to see if they can identify the problem in his abdomen.
The doctor hopes that the treatment will help Aubrey improve some by tomorrow morning. Right before Brise and I left this morning, Aubrey was able to urinate a little, which is a great sign.
I like numbers and charts and percentages and they can’t give me anything like that. I spent today filled with anxiety. The weather in Charlotte has been rough and we have been under a winter advisory warning, so Brise and I didn’t go to the hospital earlier today. We went in at 5:30 so the doctor could tell us the result of the xrays and because I wanted to let Aubrey know we love him and are proud of him for fighting so hard. While there, the doctor told me that if she had to rate their health on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being phenomenal and 10 being “concerned about dying within an hour,” Aubrey would be at a 6 and Finn and Lydia would both be at a 1. Perhaps having a scale would make other people’s anxiety increase, but it helped me because it gave me some sort of context.
Aubrey needs prayers right now. He’s got the best medicine can offer him. I plan to call the hospital around 2 AM (when I’m up anyway), but I know they’ll call me if there are any issues.