One thing I’ve learned with Grair is that when he has a discouraging diagnosis, there’s usually another side of the coin.

Today, the doctors from Infectious Disease came to take a look at Grair. Given the past 5 weeks of illness without a source, Dr. Fletcher asked them to intervene and bring their knowledge to the party. In short, they need to run more tests. These tests involve ultrasounds, nasal swabs, CT scans and blood work. The first two were accomplished this afternoon. The CT scan and blood work will be done tomorrow.

So, we’re still trying to determine the source of the illness. Often, a source can be masked by antibiotics, which Grair has had plenty over the past few weeks. In order to help determine the source, the doctors have decided to take Grair off the antibiotics and see what happens.

On a positive note, Dr. Fletcher reviewed Grair’s echo results with Dr. Hammel this morning. Dr. Hammel believes it may be possible to place a stint in Grair’s valve to keep it open and decrease the pumping velocity. This is a less invasive procedure (no bypass). It would render the valve useless, however it would keep the conduit from collapsing. This could buy us some time (perhaps a year or more!) before the next surgery.

While this is positive, we have to determine the source of the illness first. If we find something that doesn’t involve Grair’s heart, we may be able to fix the heart with the stint. However if we can’t find the infection or we’re able to determine the source is his heart, we’re back in the open-heart and bypass boat.

Hopefully in a few more days we’ll be able to have a better idea of where to go.