Support for Ethan

Not much good news to report on our Ethan. He's battling hard and not made much ground over the last week. He's endured daily blood draws, blown lines, new line insertions, frequent suctioning of his air tube which is very uncomfortable for him, numerous tests and scans and another lung wash and suction. He's also been having fevers again the last few days. The results from the lung wash show that the PCP pneumonia bug is gone - so that's awesome. However he has a secondary lung infection now as a yeast bug has invaded his airways and will likely be hard to get rid of. This is the reason he hasn't shown improvement with his breathing this week and is still heavily relying on the ventilator. An antifungal med has been started by IV and we are waiting for cultures to grow enough to show which yeast is the culprit so that targeted treatment can begin. Now that he's been hooked up to the ventilator for just over two weeks, the docs are talking about switching him to a tracheostomy which is an airway made in his wind pipe at the bottom of his neck. This news came as a big shock to us on Thursday. We'd been holding on to hope that he would indeed be able to be weaned from the ventilator fairly quickly as was initially predicted. This news means that Ethan is expected to need the ventilator for a long time - how long exactly no-one knows. Such a blow to the morale! The tracheostomy will apparently be more comfortable for Ethan and he may, with time, be able to learn how to eat and drink again which will be great. Hopefully he will also be able to learn how to vocalise as this has been a big cause of frustration and sadness for him and us since he's been hooked up to the vent. He can mouth words but we don't always manage to figure out what he's trying to say. The ventilator tube going down his throat makes it impossible for him to make any sound. Ethan has been very sad over the last week and seems to be depressed at the moment. He has asked a few times over the last few days about the ventilation tube going into his nose and yesterday touched it and mouthed 'how long?'. The whole scenario is very obviously getting him down. More updates are available at www.facebook.com/EthansLeukaemiaJourney