Pictures and more hospital updates.

First things first... The family would all like to thank the nurses and doctors at Glenfield Hospital for being so wonderful.
All of your comments and well wishes are being passed on, so if you havn't yet written anything then please do so.

The pictures that follow are in stages of Theo's condition.



The picture above was taken before we knew that he was poorly.



This picture was at the LRI on Tuesday afternoon/wednesday morning when, at this point they realised it was more serious than dehydration/no feeding and started taking blood for numerous different, lumbar puncture and began feeding him with milk via tube. Still able to cuddle him, etc at this stage.



Theo in Intensive Care yesterday/today including big tube in month to control breathing, two tubes in nose for lining (feeding) stomach with a little milk and the other to control his core temperature. Canular in hand to take blood for tests, whilst two others (one groin/one neck) in to main arteries for administering various drugs, etc. Wednesday/yesterday three/four types of broad spectrum antibiotics, plus adrenaline, morphine and then others to allow him to pass fluids, and then others to replace some essential minerals/salts (?) that the fluids take away, something called carnitine to help strengthen the heart muscles and a number of others with long medical names - i'm sure our doctor/nurse friends may be able to guess. Also one drug to effectively paralyse him to make him more comfortable / allow doctors easier access (less wriggling in pain) whilst doing scans etc. A biopsy was being arranged yesterday (for today) to take some muscle for testing to see if the cell are able to process energy in the right way as the doctors believed it may be some kind of problem with metabolic function.



News from Colin:

"If people want to look at the british heart foundation website then Theo is showing effects of both dilated and hypertropic cardiomyopathy.

The first of the tests have come back and confirm its a viral infection rather than a metabolic or bacterial issue. This is good news in that the metabolic function problem would be untreatable. It also means the antibiotics for any bacterial infection are not required.

Therefore today number of drugs reduced and leaves us with the possibilities of;

1) As a baby his body repairs itself and he fights off the virus as there is no anti-virals to help him.
2) he dies.

Current odds 50:50.

More goods news for the day is that they feel that his stable condition for the last 24 hours allows them to raise his core temperature (they cooled it originally), they've increased his feeding, although this is still minute compared to what it should be, only a few millilitres per hour.

On a positive note, we've told the bed in intensive care, with dedicated nurse and the continuous attention of various doctors, consultants, etc etc is costing lots of money. At last i see some benefit from my taxes i've paid in the last ten years!

On that note too, myself and Willow would like to thank all the nurses/doctors who have helped Theo/us so far - they've all been wonderful. I guess the NHS are only slow when they have the time to do so (?)."