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Let me start this by clearly stating, "I HATE SALMONELLA!"
So, Klaw's brush with this nasty micro-organism has been a doozy. However, with the exception of this past Sunday, he has maintained his cheery disposition. Chris & I have truly been blessed with an easy-going, personable little baby. His PICC line is in, he is receiving ampicillin every 6 hours, and he is eating well. His stools are almost completely normal again.
Klaw is definitely in the best of hands with Dr. Proud (geneticist), Dr. Matson (infectious diseases), and CHKD. We've hit a few speed bumps with a the sheer lack of knowledge about VLCADD by the regular doctors & residents (it's interesting and a little scary knowing more about a medical condition than the majority of the doctors you encounter). Chris has learned that there is a reason that I ask questions of every doctor/nurse who wants to do anything to Klaw. Trust me, I am NOT the mom you want to cross when it comes to the care of my son. I don't care how many letters you have behind your name, I am not intimidated by you and you will have to justify everything you want to do to my son. We have both learned more about Salmonella than we ever cared to know
So, Salmonella, you are a sneaky little bacteria. We only recently learned just how sneaky you are. First of all, evidently not everyone is even susceptible to salmonella. It requires a specific host and no one is quite sure exactly what makes one person a good host and not the next person. As it was described to us, you could put Klaw in a room full of other babies and some of them would get infected, others not at all. Secondly, people can be infected and be completely asymptomatic. So, a seemingly perfectly healthy person could be walking around with a salmonella infection, spreading it around everywhere they go. There was evidently an observation among preschoolers where they they literally just tested stool samples everyday and salmonella infections went through many of the kids with only a few actually showing symptoms. Scary.
As it stands, all of Klaw's food sources (formula, cereals, etc) have been tested in the lab at CHKD and have come up clean. The formula company is going to test the formula in house, also, just to be sure. Dr. Matson feels that the most likely source of Klaw's infection is from an asymptomatic person handling him or his food. During the week before he came down with symptoms of the salmonella infection, he was around several "new" people outside his regular interactions...including Chris...any of who could have been an asymptomatic vector.
I am not an overprotective mom by any means and I have never wanted to be "that" mom. Kids need to be kids. Klaw is so good with other people and, as long as he can see Chris or me, he's comfortable with just about anyone. However, this has been a horrible reminder that Klaw's medical condition really, truly makes every illness that much more serious than with a "normal" baby. The prospect of flu season is seriously beginning to scare the poop out of me. Chris & I have some serious discussions in our future and some big decisions we have to make about Klaw's exposure to other people. Do they make a human-sized version of this? If so, it's on the Christmas wish list...
