Baby home again!
Very good news: **TODO is now safely at home again, sleeping (noisily) in his Moses basket next to me as I type!
Still no final diagnosis, but basically the 'five-day-fits / benign neonatal convulsions / just one of those things that sometimes happens' verdict is looking pretty much confirmed. (You wouldn't expect it being definite until years later, anyway, since it's the diagnosis of exclusion.)
Discharge was expedited by one of the swabs they took in A&E on the way in coming back positive for ESBL-producing E. coli. There's been an outbreak at a nearby hospital Neonatal Unit where two little ones died, so understandably they were keen to get us plague carriers out of there.
He's absolutely fine, and he's either already shaken it off or it's now just one of many other strains of E. coli he carries in his gut, like an increasing number of people. More's the pity, thanks to un-necessary prescription of antibiotics to humans (where there's a bit of a tragedy of the commons thing going on) and genuinely evil (and I'm not saying that lightly) continual dosage of antibiotics to livestock, which pretty much matches what I'd do as a biochemist if I was trying to induce antibiotic resistance.
I am left feeling a bit guilty: not that we knew he had it, and not that we wouldn't have taken him in if we did. And the standard of hand and other hygiene in the ICU when I was there was really pretty high, specifically because of the risk of this sort of thing. And they were already on their toes about infection control after picking up a case elsewhere in the hospital and the nearby hospital outbreak. So it should be fine.
I'm also feeling a bit of survivor's-guilt type stuff about the other parents and babies on the unit. We've left, and everything looks set fair for us now. (He even got an extended bonus hearing test, which he passed with flying colours.) But everyone else is still there, and in for the long haul at best. I'm sure that in reality they're probably delighted for us (once the staff tell them that it's very good news, not bad news, that **TODO has vanished!) but I can't help imagining resentment.
We brushed up against some really awful stuff, and seem to have got away very lightly. I feel really lucky.
Still no final diagnosis, but basically the 'five-day-fits / benign neonatal convulsions / just one of those things that sometimes happens' verdict is looking pretty much confirmed. (You wouldn't expect it being definite until years later, anyway, since it's the diagnosis of exclusion.)
Discharge was expedited by one of the swabs they took in A&E on the way in coming back positive for ESBL-producing E. coli. There's been an outbreak at a nearby hospital Neonatal Unit where two little ones died, so understandably they were keen to get us plague carriers out of there.
He's absolutely fine, and he's either already shaken it off or it's now just one of many other strains of E. coli he carries in his gut, like an increasing number of people. More's the pity, thanks to un-necessary prescription of antibiotics to humans (where there's a bit of a tragedy of the commons thing going on) and genuinely evil (and I'm not saying that lightly) continual dosage of antibiotics to livestock, which pretty much matches what I'd do as a biochemist if I was trying to induce antibiotic resistance.
I am left feeling a bit guilty: not that we knew he had it, and not that we wouldn't have taken him in if we did. And the standard of hand and other hygiene in the ICU when I was there was really pretty high, specifically because of the risk of this sort of thing. And they were already on their toes about infection control after picking up a case elsewhere in the hospital and the nearby hospital outbreak. So it should be fine.
I'm also feeling a bit of survivor's-guilt type stuff about the other parents and babies on the unit. We've left, and everything looks set fair for us now. (He even got an extended bonus hearing test, which he passed with flying colours.) But everyone else is still there, and in for the long haul at best. I'm sure that in reality they're probably delighted for us (once the staff tell them that it's very good news, not bad news, that **TODO has vanished!) but I can't help imagining resentment.
We brushed up against some really awful stuff, and seem to have got away very lightly. I feel really lucky.