November 17, 2006 - Pray the Infection Away

Hello Everyone! Here we are at Duke. We have had an interesting day or so. The bump on Erik's head that we mentioned in our last emal continued to slowly get larger. Wednesday we called Duke to talk about our concerns. Last year when the infection was treated, we were told that we literally caught it just in time. If we had waited even as little a 12 hours, Erik would most likely have been dealing with life-threatening circumstances. Reflecting on this, we called to report the changes in the bump and his seizure activity. We made an appointment for 11am yesterday and ended up being admitted for surgery. They performed a CT scan with contrast and noticed that the area where Erik had surgery last year followed by the infection appeared to be changed indicating possible infection. We met a new neurosurgeon - Dr. Gerald Grant. We really like him and believe he truly has Erik's best interest at heart. We were doubly pleased to know that he trained with Dr. Steinberg in CA! This was such good news for us! We so many times wondered if we needed to just take Erik to CA to get things resolved where they started. It is like God brought CA to us! Very comforting! They decided to go to the OR and see what was going on. It was a good thing that they made this decision because the infection that he had last year in the bone had apparently "hung around" and had deteriorated the bone that was taken off to perform his surgery to remove the AVM last year. The surgeon said that there were fragments of bone in there and hardware that was intended to hold things together - unattached. They cleaned the area out and left the bone off. The plan now is to see what the cultures show (what kind of bacteria is causing the infection) and determine what treatment to pursue. It could be that they will be able to teat him with oral antibiotics or they may have to put in a central line and give him stronger antibiotics. We pray that they will not need to put a line in. They also are hoping not to have to put a doner or artificial bone over the area. It may be safe to just leave the bone off of this area. Please pray that Erik will not need a central line, that his seizures will cease, that the infection will be cleared from his body, and that he will quickly be fully restored. We know that God will continue to carry us through. Happy Thanksgiving! Love in Christ, Erik's Family