Testing

So... writing from the hospital again. We went basically six months with no real indicents, and then we hit September. Since September 1, we have been to the ER 6 times, to the clinic 13 times, and spent 9 nights in the hospital. This is number 10.

Joshua got a good report at his clinic visit today; counts were up, looking good. Then he woke up from his nap with a 102 degree fever. Back to the clinic. Because this has happened with such frequency over this month, our doctor said it was time to take a "more aggressive approach" to finding out what's causing it. His thinking was that given the continuing nature of these fevers, maybe they are all being caused by the same thing. Now we try and figure out what that thing might be.

Just some possibilities - it might be a pocket of infection built up somewhere in Joshua's body, like in his belly or in his sinuses. And if that's the case, the infection might be viral. It might be fungal. It might be alot of things. But we'd sure like to know what it is so that it can be treated and we can quit coming back here every 2 days. Anyway, we were hoping that we could once again mobilize this army of praying friends for our little boy. There are alot of things about this hospital visit that feel weird to us - we looking for something else wrong with Joshua, there's more testing involved, and other stuff - it just feels more like the days when Joshua was first diagnosed with leukemia a year ago than we are comfortable with. So we're a little on edge.

Over the next few days, we are going to have alot of x-rays and cat scans to try and figure out what the deal is. So would you please pray that the doctors would find out quickly what's causing this fever and that it would be easily treatable once it's identified? It would mean alot to us.