First Father's Day

The last few days have been pretty good. Maxwell was heading the right direction quickly following his feeding tube being moved into his GI tract. He is currently at a pressure of 42 on the jet, so down about 3 since the last post. The doctors had expected to see a decrease in the amount of goo they are sucking out of his lungs once the feeding tube was moved into his intestines, but it seems like there are gobs and gobs of secretions every time they suction him. That could be every 2 hours or every 30 minutes...doesn't matter. So the docs decided to do a "culture" of the secretions, and have since discovered the presence of both serratia and another bacteria. This was a little surprising because none of his blood work indicated that his white blood cell count was on the rise. Max has had both of these bacterias before, so that could be part of the explanation. Apparently, when he already has known colonies of these bacteria and an immature immune system, it is possible for these bacteria to sort of "over take" the immune system and the bones cannot produce white blood cells quickly enough to combat them. Long story short, Max is on antibiotics again and does seem to be a little less cheerful than he had for a few days. We pray that God will work through the medication and heal Max quicker than anyone could expect, and keep those pressures on the vent coming down. Max reached the 6 pound club on Friday night and tipped the scales at 6 pounds 3 ounces tonight. I cannot believe he actually gained weight after the diaper I changed today. I could tell just by holding him that he was working on something, but I was not prepared for what I saw. I won't even try to describe it, but it weighed 90 grams...or 3 ounces. Quite a Father's Day present buddy!!

Wes has been doing very well. He is still a very angry child, unless his CPAP is off. He has tolerated his "trials" or "weans" very well thus far, and is currently off CPAP 2 times a day for 4 hours!! It is so much fun to hold a child that can be moved around a little bit and repositioned easily. I thought Wes had given his mother a little bit of a present during a diaper change...but he left the finale for Dad. Thanks Pal...that was really special. These two kids can clear out a room. I am looking forward to the day they no longer need their mutli-vitamin, because we are pretty sure that is the culprit.

Our basement survived the 7+ inches of rain on Friday night...but I am not so sure about our car. We were heading home from the hospital at about 9:00 on Friday night and decided we needed some ice-cream from the Drenthe Village Dipper. In hindsight, the ice cream may have been a poor decision. The driving conditions off of the highway were maybe the worst I have ever seen. I could see maybe 30 feet in front of the car and the wipers were not nearly fast enough to actually clear the water from the windshield. We made it to the Dipper...and then about 100 yards from the entrance to our neighborhood, we hit a puddle that was a little bit longer and deeper than the previous 500 puddles we had successfully navigated. This was complicated by a silver Dodge Caravan straying directly into our lane in the middle of said puddle. The water actually came over the hood of our Mazda Millenia and I had just enough inertia to make it out of the deepest part of the water. The car then stalled. I was able to get it going after a few minutes, but it has not really run well since.

This is where the post ends for the casual reader and now becomes a forum post for the mechanically inclined: I took the entire air intake side of the vehicle off and dried it out. The air filter was soaked through and I know for a fact that water made it into the cylinder heads. The engine oil has some opaque bubbles in it and I checked the spark plugs and found the electrodes in good shape, but the firing end was completely white. I do not know where to go from there. The car starts and runs fairly well (I only drove it up and down the street), so would it only need an oil change and some new plugs? That would be nice. I fear the worst, however. Email me at markwiersma@yahoo.com with any tips.