At the regular dental appointment, Jakub's dentist noticed that his new teeth were already out, but his baby teeth didn't fall out yet. So, as quickly as possible, without Jakub even realizing what was going on, the dentist pulled out Jakub's two bottom teeth:

Jakub and Robert are very much into magic now. Although sometimes they don't really understand the concept of magic, but they try their very hardest. It's so so cute.

After two weeks of hospitalization, Jakub came home. Then he had 11 more days of oral antibiotics. They were disgusting in flavor and we had to give it to Jakub every 6h (the nights weren't long enough), but now it's over. Recently we went to the hospital for a final checkup and a final x-ray, and he's very very healthy. Even the doctors said he did better than expected. YEY!

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.

We went to Sherbrooke to visit our friends (Beata and her daughter Karolina). We took our other friends along (Asia, Jurek, Amelka, Natalka). It was supposed to rain, but the weather changed, and it turned out to be a great day. Here are some pictures from the trip, a little hike we did, and then a swim in their ultra clean pool. I love to go visit Beata - there's always so much to do.

Jakub recently finished his swimming course with his school. It was great, and he got put in with the "expert" swimmers. There was only three people in that class, two girls and Jakub. The teacher was really good and pushed the kids to their limits. Jakub loved him and loved the class. On the last day, instead of getting the kids to go down the slide and play in the boat (like the kids in the beginning classes did), the swimming instructor suggested to his three kids whether they wanted to go jump off the diving board. Man, were the kids really excited (including Kubus). Before, Alex suggested to Kubus on many occasions to go jump off the diving board, which Jakub promptly rejected. But this time, when there were other kids, and it was a teacher asking to jump, he JUMPED. I was amazed! Later the teacher asked them if they wanted to jump off the big tower... and they did. Imagine 5 year olds on the big jumping tower. He was so scared, but he did it! I was so proud. Jakub has really come out of his shell recently, and he has so much courage... more than I ever had (I never jumped off the tower to this day).

For all of you out there that think that I have three clones of each other in three different sizes: SMALL, MEDIUM, and LARGE...

Last week, Jakub invited us to his school to show off his "portfolio". Wow, what an event. He had to dress up in his official clothes (tie and blazer and all) and show us all the work he's done all year. We sat at tiny tables in tiny chairs and listened to Kuba telling us what each thing was in his portfolio.

Since I talk to my son and come to get him everyday from pre-school, I know what he does, so none of it was news to me. But it was very important to him. In fact, we had to play "Portfolio Day" just yesterday where we pretended we were kids showing our portfolios to our parents (Jakub chose a few books to represent the portfolios). Very cute.

Finally the weather is nice. Spring is here. We decide to go to the library by walking, about 4K round trip. Jakub wants to take his bike. If he succeeds, this will be by far the furthest distance he will have crossed by bike.

We start off with Robert on the bike, because he insisted. His feet scarcely touch the pedals and he doesn't quite get the steering, but he has a good time being pull by his balloon string.

Then comes Jakub. He still remembers how to ride, but not at 100% efficiency. He especially doesn't remember how to stop and there was one scare when he kept on rolling almost into the street. Luckily he bailed into someone's lawn.

Jakub proved that he had the stamina, if not pride enough to keep a short spell of whining inside.