Jakub has been in the hospital for the last 8 days. He went in with a fever and sore ribs, which were diagnosed as a Staph Aureus infection. Staph is a tough bacteria to kill when it's inside the body, but it is all around the outside, apparently especially in the nose. One of our doctors said that Jakub could have got it from another kid who had picked his nose and then touched a scrape that Jakub had on his knee. Or maybe Jakub picked his own nose. Anyway, he was sick on Thursday afternoon and we took him to the hospital on Friday morning. The initial advice was that he was just constipated, causing the pain in his stomach area, and had an unrelated infection causing the fever.

I was very impressed that the doctor took blood and x-rays. She sensed that the initial explanation was maybe not 100% right. Turns out, after a day of culturing the blood, that he had Staph and the hospital called us back.

Now the tests and treatment really started at the Montreal Children's Hospital. He went on intraveinous antibiotics and rounds of x-rays, ultrasounds and gallium-bone-scans to find out what was causing the pain in Jakub's chest. Staph enters the blood and then can cause infections usually in the lungs, heart or a bone. Since the pain seemed to be in a rib the doctors suspected a bone infection at first but they also had to eliminate the heart. The bone is a bad place for the staph to hide because the treatment is very long, perhaps six weeks. While the investigation continued he was kept on antibiotics assuming the bone, and his blood cleared of the staph infection. Unfortunately, he still had the fever and pain so the search continued for the hiding place of the bacteria.

After the tests the doctors believed that the staph was isolated in the lung causing a pneumonia in the left lung. Additional, the pneumonia caused an accumulation of fluid around the lung, which would explain the fever and the pain. Since the fliud was not easing on his own, Jakub was scheduled for an emergency surgery to drain the fluid. He had this surgery on Friday morning and is currently attached to many wires. He is in good spirits, eating well and generally seems to at least be no worse off than before the surgery. Hopefully the fever will break after a day or two and he can be released in a week. The doctor gave me only a 20% chance of this optimistic outcome.

I must also say that the Montreal Children`s Hospital is fantastic. He has a team of doctors looking after him as well as specialists from infectious diseases, respiratory illness, and now surgeons. Each day they answer all our questions with endless patience, tell us what puzzles them and their strategies, and teach us whatever we need to know. Nothing is held back. He gets whichever tests and procedures might help his recovery but not more. We don't take ourselves or the kids to the hospital for colds or bumps so we don't experience the 12 hour waits that we always hear about. Every experience we've had: childbirth, ear infection, a scary high fever in Newfoundland, and now this, has left me very satisfied with our care.

The Montreal Children's is very children oriented. They have playrooms, videos, games, and an outdoor terrace with a playground on the 8th floor. The only thing they don't have is good food, but I hear that no hospital has good food.

Special thanks to all Jakub's friends who visited him in the hospital or sent get-well-wishes. He appreciated those visits so much and says THANK YOU to everyone. And thanks from Bogusia and I for the many offers of help. Thank you also to CN and my VP and director for not hesitating to give me the flexibility to care for Jakub.

Here are some pictures of Jakub from this week.