Medical Update II

On Wednesday, Big Academic Medical Center started Dear Son on Zosyn and Vancomycin via the IV. On Thursday morning, I noticed that Dear Son was bright red and had Red Man Syndrome, a common adverse reaction to Vancomycin. He has had this before and I remembered it once I saw it. They started him on Benadryl to counteract that and things began to improve. Last night they were able to wean him off of all oxygen and he is breathing on his own. Today, they stated that they will switch him to oral antibiotics and see if he tolerates it. He will continue this for 12-14 days. They stated that the pneumonia is most likely an aspiration pneumonia or a non-MRSA pneumonia. He opened his eyes today for the first time since he was admitted although he is still sleeping the entire day. The good news is that they expect that we are probably out of the woods regarding the pneumonia; his fever is gone and the antibiotics appear to be working. He still has a pretty good pnemonia, so it will take time to get rid of it totally.

Today they will begin the extended EEG monitoring. Typically, when Dear Son has an infection, it will lower the seizure threshold so more seizures will present. In Dear Son's case, he was having seizures prior to the pneumonia so I can not say that I noticed more due to the pneumonia. Conversely, once an antibiotic is started, it can have the opposite effect by decreasing seizures since the antibiotic will raise the free portions of the seizure meds thus increasing the medicine levels which can make them more effective thus reducing the seizures. The problem arises when the antibitotic is finished, seizures will go back to their previous levels.
So essentially, we expect that the EEG may be better, although the effect may only be temporary.

They expect that he will remain in the hospital until we get the EEG issues resolved. He'll be monitored through Monday and then once the EEG is read, we'll take it from there and can possibly get released.

Thank you for your concern and I'll keep you posted the best I can.