17 Oct Update
Perhaps we posted too soon yesterday. Keegan has had a pretty awful time since yesterday afternoon. From about 3pm on, he was either asleep or screaming/thrashing in pain. He would not let anyone, even me, touch him. His stomach was cramping terribly, and we could not soothe him until he would eventually pass out. The doctors decided to put him back on gut rest, so we started his IV fluids again. About that time, he developed a terrible rash. We gave him some benadryl, but it appeared to be hives. We couldn’t figure out what he could possibly be having a reaction to at this point. His tummy still seemed to be othering him the absolute most, so around 9pm last night we took him to radiology for a procedure to diagnose and correct intussusception, a condition where the intestine telescopes over itself. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the answer either.
We went through the whole night like that, knowing that Dr. Brown would be here this morning to conference with Dr. Fixler. After his morning meds, the hives got a lot worse. Dr. Brown actually was happy to see that – he thinks that Keegan has developed an allergy to Bactrim, one of his medications. He said there are very few things that can cause you to continue to have watery stools when you’re not taking in any nutrition. We can rule out pretty much all of them, leaving us with it most likely being a reaction to one of his meds. This makes some sense because until now, Keegan always took Bactrim with food. That would also help buffer a reaction; now, he has nothing to buffer it at all. So, the plan of action is to stop all of his medications, except for his Prograf (immunosuppressant). We’re going to start him on an IV drip steriod twice a day to help ease the rash and itching. They are scheduling him to get a pic-line to start giving him some basic nutrition. Then, we watch and wait. If this doesn’t work, the next step is an abdominal catscan. If it does work, we will have to wait for him to be able to eat normally again and change his med schedule to avoid this problem in the future.
Keegan finally fell asleep again. He is still in a lot of pain, looks terrible with the rash, and is very itchy. Hopefully, it will not be for much longer. Please pray that this is the answer we have been so desperately looking for these past months. We greatly appreciate your love and support through this ordeal. We will likely be here in the hospital through next week, but if it helps Keegan feel better, we will stay here as long as he wants!
I guess decorating the door didn’t work, but it looks GREAT. Thanks, Aunt Alex! We’ll bring the camera up to the hospital tomorrow and take pictures to show you. Thank you again for your thoughts and prayers.