the latest

I know I have not been the best blogger these days! We've just had some very busy days, dr appts, and just life in general. I did want to give an update on Silas' health. I want other adoptive parents who read our blog to be best prepared for what they may encounter when they come home with their children.

Going one by one might be easiest!

-He is just finishing up his third antibiotic for his double ear infections and bronchitis. After a chest xray showed some nastiness in his lungs, it looks like it was either really bad bronchitis or pneumonia. We will have to go back for another xray in 2 weeks to make sure that it's clearing up. He seems to be feeling SO much better than he was though!

-They were worried that he had not been gaining weight. When we took him a little over a week ago, he had not gained anything since we left Ethiopia. And he eats like a mad man! So they wanted to closely monitor his weight. Thankfully when we went today he had finally gained! Last time he was 16 lbs 7 oz, and this time he was 17 lbs 2 oz! We will take all we can get! It will continue to be monitored, and we will keep giving him all the healthy calories he will take!

-He had a positive TB skin test. He had a BCG vaccine in Ethiopia, and doctors argue as to whether that can cause a false positive result. His chest xray was clear of any TB, so we are so thankful for that. Signs are pointing to it being the BCG. The plan for now is to just wait awhile and have him retested. We want to do all we can to avoid putting him on the 9 months of antibiotics if he truly doesn't need it.

-We found out he has giardia, which is a common parasite. He starts on medication for that tomorrow. Hopefully he can kick that with one round!

-His initial blood work came back showing very low white cell counts. We went back for more blood work this past weekend to make sure they were rebounding. Unfortunately they were either unchanged, or even under what they were. They are at critical levels. They think this is because he was just fighting what he had for a very long time and it just wiped him out. We will go back again on Saturday to have more blood drawn. Please pray his numbers have increased! If they haven't, they will do more in depth tests to check for genetic disorders or HIV. We are not concerned at this point, since all things point to him just being depleted by this illness. However, this means we are pretty much housebound! We just can't risk him catching something at this point since he has no reserves to fight it off.

Sooo...we go back on Saturday for more blood work, go get another chest xray in a few weeks, and then collect stool samples when he's done with his meds to make sure the parasite is gone. That is the game plan for now! In the mean time please pray with us that his white blood cell counts will increase!!!