The Kanis Family

Hmmm… what to say???

I’ll start with last Friday as I actually meant to do a post on Friday night. Benjamin was very happy when Alice & I went to visit him. They had him up in the wheelchair playing with the toys and he was quite happy.

Saturday, Gary & I went with Kyle to see Benjamin. We got there and Benjamin was awake:) Kyle told us “Benjamin awake. Benjamin all better. Take this out (pointing to the ventilator tube). Benjamin come home now.” We told him that yes, Benjamin is getting better but he’s still very sick and can’t come home yet. He then climbed up on the bed and started playing with the ball with Benjamin. Benjamin has a ball that is hanging with coban tape from his overhead light and Kyle was throwing it towards Benjamin and Benjamin was smiling & laughing. Then the nurse asked me if I wanted to hold Benjamin. Can you guess what my answer was? OF COURSE!!!! I hadn’t held him in just over 7 weeks so it was very special to be able to hold him. Gary took Kyle up to the toy room and I snuggled with Benjamin for a while. Then they came back down and we stayed a bit longer and then it was time to go home again.

Yesterday my mom went to sit with Benjamin in the afternoon so we could have a break and spend some time with our other kids. She phoned us when she got home to tell us that the nurse had told her that Benjamin just got tested for MRSA and has it. MRSA (Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus) is a staph infection that is resistant to certain kinds of antibiotics. Of course I freaked out since I had heard a lot of bad things about MRSA and knew a little boy who died from it. So I called in but the nurse was busy with another patient so she couldn’t talk to me. So I called back a while later and talked to the nurse. She assured me that they weren’t too concerned and that a doctor would talk to me the next day when I came in.

This morning when I went to visit Benjamin, he was really agitated. The nurse said that he had been like that all morning. But she couldn’t figure out why because the sedation hadn’t changed. When I got there they were just putting him in a standing frame. He was in there for about 3 minutes. But since he hadn’t stood in over 7 weeks his legs could only handle a few minutes. His legs turned really red from the blood rushing to them. The standing frame that they had also didn’t fit him that well as it was meant for a bigger child. Then they put him in the wheelchair but he didn’t really enjoy it. I then noticed that his feed was leaking around his G-tube so I told the nurse and also let her know that Benjamin’s G-tube was actually due to be changed right before he got admitted to the hospital. So she ordered another one and I changed it. He handled it very well and didn’t even cry this time. So hopefully that was what was bugging him this morning. He fell asleep right before I left so hopefully he had a good sleep. I also talked to a resident about the MRSA and they don’t seem too concerned. Because it’s only on the skin and he hadn’t been showing any symptoms they aren’t too concerned about it. He is on isolation again though and she told me he’d probably have MRSA on his skin for the rest of his life. But she also told us that if we got tested we’d probably have MRSA on our skin too as a significant number of the general population actually have MRSA and don’t know it. So that makes me feel a bit better. I just hope tomorrow is a better day for Benjamin and that he is more settled.

Mommy holding Benjamin for the first time in over 7 weeks Benjamin enjoying playing with mommy while in his wheelchair Auntie Alice making Benjamin smile:)