Update On Little Carter-Man

Since the last update...Carter did well with all treatments and tolerated them well. His blood counts are holding strong. Starting last Wednesday, the family started to see remarkable improvements in Carter during Physical Therapy. He seemed stronger and more at ease during the session.

Speech Therapy came and put a speaking valve on Carter's trache and he tolerated it quite well. Normally, children can only tolerate it for about 5 minutes at first but after 25 minutes, he was still holding strong!! He was able to make sounds and they anticipated that at the next round, they could get him to talk (he was very nervous so he only made sounds...they said it would feel weird to Carter at first)!

Until Sunday, things were going wonderfully. Carter-Man was moved out of the PICU Sunday afternoon, only to find that as soon as he went back on the floor he spiked a fever, his heart rate was high and he was breathing rapidly. They decided to do a CT scan of the brain to make sure things looked okay. There has been no change since the last scan. A chest X-ray which was also done was fine. Even though things seemed to be checking out okay, because of the situation they moved him back to PICU. The doctors swear he just likes it better over there :)

Monday....The Intensivist decided to put Carter back on the vent because he was still breathing fast...instantly, things were good! His fever went away and his blood cultures have grown nothing yet. The cultures they took from his secretions and his stool sample are both fine as well.

So....what next? They did a scope yesterday (looked at his airway with a camera) and there were no signs of obstruction. The family is waiting for the doctors to tell them what their next plan of action will be. This may have been a virus that caused the fever, high heart rate and rapid breathing. The cause is not certain at this point, but they do not think it is neurological because things seem to be going in the right direction there.

Carter has a break from treatment this week and will begin another round of Avastin and Irinotecan on Monday (6/22). Per Courtney's request: KEEP THE PRAYERS COMING!!!