A Definitive Diagnosis

I wanted to provide a bit of recap on stuff around here the last day. A diagnosis has finally been made on Jonathan’s illness, and based on what we’ve learned, all the illness we have seen around our house for the past three weeks is beginning to make sense, and appears very related. But I’ll back up….

Things got pretty interesting on Friday and Saturday. Baby Josiah took a turn for the worse with his tummy virus: he got significantly worse Friday night, starting running a fever, was up much of the night again, and became “limp” early Saturday. A trip to the pediatrician assured us he was not dehydrated or in any immediate danger, and the doctor gave us a few suggestions which appear to have helped him some. While he has not made a full recovery, he did sleep through the night last night, and today is perkier again. How wonderful to see him playful and happy after the past few days.

As you already know, Jonathan came home from the hospital in the early afternoon yesterday and we are so thankful to have him and Jay back. He continues with fever and lethargy, but will hopefully gain strength gradually. He had a great night’s sleep last night in his own bed which is a huge blessing. His hospital doctor called a short while ago to inform us that based on some cultures done while he was at Children’s, they have made a definitive diagnosis: adenovirus, which is a collective name for a group of viruses that afflict mostly children, have far-ranging symptoms, and often mimic pneumonia closely. From what the doctor described, we are concluding that Josiah has actually had the same virus, just in somewhat different form, and that Abigail’s illness from a week ago also falls into the same group of symptoms. Nicolas, our only child who has not been ill these past three weeks, probably not wanting to be left out of the “fun”, woke us at 3am crying, as he had started with high fever, headache, and some other symptoms Jonathan had.

So…that is a longwinded way of telling you, it looks like we know what we are dealing with here. Antibiotics won’t help; the only treatment is to keep the body strong in order to help fight the virus till it’s gone. Jonathan’s case was much worse given his recent bout of pneumonia, and weakened system, which is why he ended up in the hospital. We hope and pray the other two little boys will experience a much more “normal” course of this virus. Fever and other symptoms are supposed to last approximately five days.

Thank you all for your prayers, concerns, notes, etc over the past few days. You are of great encouragement to us. Maybe within a week’s time our family will be ready to venture back out into society, and celebrate the last remaining days of summer. (I REALLY hope so!)

As a small aside, I’m wondering if we should consider setting up a sub-category for blogposts on this website entitled “Sickness, Illnesses, The Latest Plague at House of Horne, etc etc”. Heheh, just a bit of humor, dear readers!

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