Home Sweet Home

Cooper's new set up in the living room. Chair pillow, new transformer blanket & cars all around. Notice the palate that Brady made next to Cooper, but Wiggy took over. I think Wiggy was really sad all week.


The dynamic duo are back in action with racetracks!

We made it home on Friday evening praise the Lord! We have really had a good adjustment to our new routine at home. I think Brady is the most excited b/c he has been talking a million words a minute. We have been very blessed with happy thoughts and warm meals. I am usually the type of person to say, "no, we are fine, we can handle it" Not this time! I am sooooo appreciative of any help!

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I thought I would try to give an explanation of what exactly Cooper has been diagnosed with b/c we've had so many people asking. So this may be a little doctorish of a post...I will save my momma perspective of this past week on a later post (I'm just need an emotional break before I do that)

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Cooper has been diagnosed with a Brodie's abscess of his left distal femur (lower portion of thigh bone). This is apparently very rare as our surgeon had only seen 2 other cases in 28 years. Most of the time, abscess refers to an active infection & makes you think of a hot, red, swollen area. In this case, they think Cooper probably fell down & bruised his femur maybe 2-3 years ago which allowed for some blood to collect inside his bone. He most likely had one of his kajillion ear infections at the same time & the bacteria decided to live in that collection of blood. His body then did what is was supposed to do & walled off the infection to prevent him from getting sepsis (an "all over" blood infection) The bacteria did their damage to his bone & ate a hole in it. There was no more good blood supply to that area so it would not heal on its own. Their was new bone forming in abnormal layers trying to correct the back side of the bone--this new growth is why the doctors think he started having pain.

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The surgeon said that when he got to the bone, he tapped it with a needle & it just went straight into the bone & that area just collapsed & had a pocket of old/dead bone. There was no active infection visible even under the microscope or cultures. The remaining bone looked very healthy & with Coop's young age, they felt like the bone should regrow without any problems.

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Even though there were no visible bacteria & the cultures were negative, the surgery obviously stirred up a hornet's nest b/c Cooper had fever as soon as he was in recovery & continued for 72 hours. The infectious disease doctor feels that there are microscopic bacteria that just aren't visible but would continue to cause damage without intense antibiotic treatment. They are treating this as if it is MRSA (the bad staph) & it is just a hard place to "reach" with oral antibiotics. But, Coop is not infectious to others....so don't be afraid to visit.

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Cooper has a PICC line in his right arm which kinda looks like a normal IV hanging about 6 inches out of his upper arm. This IV actually extends all the way to his heart so it really doesn't irritate the soft tissue like a typical IV would. He is getting IV Clindamycin every 8 hours for a planned 3 months (the doctor said he could even extend it to 6 months, but Brad says that he will have to show us alot more data/journal articles to do that) Most of the treatments, Coop has slept thru. His only complaint is a bad taste which is cured with a starburst (just hope we don't end up with holes in his teeth b/c we are curing the hole in his leg--lol)

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The main concern for "antibiotic resistance" is mainly in his digestive tract so we are giving him probiotics daily to give him back some "good" bacteria. We will have home health visits weekly & go to Children's weekly to see the infectious doctor specialist. We will see ortho doc in two weeks then not sure how often. They plan to monitor progress of bone growth with regular xrays at his visits.
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I think that covers most of the questions/answers. Exhausting!