Update on Sawyer

Sawyer spent yesterday afternoon and much of the evening in the emergency department of Dell Children’s Hospital.  They started IV fluids and drew blood to run labs.  Sawyer’s gastroenterologist is out of town until tomorrow, so the GI doc on call took Sawyer’s case.  Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to see Sawyer in the ED, so he consulted via phone with the ED pediatrician and decided Sawyer should be admitted.

 

We got into Sawyer’s room last night around 8:30PM.  He has received continuous IV fluids, with only 300ml of output in about 20 hours (meaning he’s only peed once, which was ultra concentrated), so he was quite dehydrated.  Just getting rehydrated does wonders!

 

Sawyer slept well last night.  He’s been able to eat a little (which is more than he’s eaten over the last week!).  He’s lost 11 pounds in 8 days.  Not good, obviously, particularly for a young man who struggles to eat enough calories and fat to maintain an acceptable weight, which is still in the less than 10th percentile.

 

Sawyer’s white blood cell count is low, which they believe is due to the immune suppressing effect of his Remicade infusion drug for his Crohn’s disease.  None of the other labs have indicated anything wrong, so that’s good.

 

Sawyer’s stomach pain has been contained to a strip down the center of his stomach, where his lymph nodes are.  Our pediatrician was concerned that there could be bacterial infection in the lymph nodes, and with Sawyer’s suppressed immune system, infection could move quite easily into his blood, causing sepsis.  Our pediatrician knows Sawyer well and knows that he’s super tough.  He knows that when Sawyer presents with severe illness, it’s bad.  When Sawyer’s willing to go to the hospital, it’s really bad.

 

However, just getting hydrated via IV has made a big difference for Sawyer, praise God!  He looks about 25% better already, just with IV fluids.  The hospital pediatrician put him on Pepcid (to line his gut), as well as Zofran (for nausea).  The combination of everything, dashed with loads of prayer, seem to have helped Sawyer greatly.

 

We are waiting to see the gastroenterologist who is on call to see what his thoughts are.  Hospital staff wants to make sure this isn’t Crohn’s related, which would be the responsibility of the GI department.

 

Thank you for praying for Sawyer.  We are so grateful!  Please continue to pray for wisdom, accurate answers, and healing.  Sawyer has a rodeo this weekend that he’s supposed to compete in, so he really wants to be restored to full health quickly so he can participate.  Remember, this is the boy who team roped with a broken arm, without a cast and without medication, without complaining and without following our advice that he NOT rope!!!  He’s one tough cowboy!