Sammy

In contrast to last Wednesday when he was admitted, Sam is the picture of health. He is happy and smiley all the time, he's eating well, and he has some color back. We often find ourselves asking why he's still in the hospital.

They are slow to release him for three key reasons:
1. He needs to have had 5 days of IV antibiotics for the pneumocystis due to the superior absorption of the IV version of Bactrim.
2. He has not yet gained weight. He's eating enough to maintain his cuurent weight, but not enough to gain. Since he's still significantly below the threshold for a baby his age, they want to wait. Malnourishment or undernourishment are key causes of some of the symptopms he's been having.
3. Even if he does go home, he needs the same strict protective isolation here as he's in at the hospital. Until all the SCID tests come back as definitively negative, we have to be very careful.

So, he's not coming home today, but there's a chance he'll be discharged tomorrow. Right now we're just working on coordinating his follow-up visits and making sure HealthPartners will cover the Amino-acid based formula he needs to drink now.