Red man syndrome

We are beginning to discover that Charlie really is an unusual little guy. A few months ago our friend Joe Hanson said that we should try the lottery and to use any numbers that are associated with Charlie. This is because Charlie has beat the odds in almost everything in his life. First of all, he is a twin, about a 1 in 40 chance, then he gets diagnosed with biliary atresia, a 1 in 16,000 chance of that occuring. In addition biliary atresia is more common in girls and in Asians or African-Americans. Also, Charlie has so far been in the top third of patients having a successful Kasai surgery. Today has shown us that he is definately continuing on in this "beating the odds" pattern. He had been started on an antibiotic called vancomycin late last night and soon after his first dose was started he began turning red. One of the rare adverse reactions to vancomycin is a thing called "red man syndrome" a condition characterized by flushing and a rash that affects the face, neck and upper torso. It occurs in less than 0.1% of the patients that recieve IV vancomycin. Fortunately, it is not a serious side effect and can be treated with benadryl before each vancomycin dose.
Other hospital updates: Charlie was negative for rotavirus. We will get results back to see if it is C diff or not later today. Also, we are still unsure if the infection is cholangitis or not so Dr. Book has said that the safest route is to treat as if it was cholangitis. That means another cycle of antibiotics and possibly the need for another PICC line.
Charlie continues to be such a cute and happy boy during all this. We sure are lucky to have him.

Here's a pic of him and I the day before we brought him into Primary Childrens again...