Day 13

Carter is still battling the infections, but we're hopeful that he'll start to improve over the next few days. When we showed up he looked like he had a little more spunk in him. His physical therapist showed up to teach us some exercises to do to help Carter with his motor skills. Carter seemed to really enjoy them, and we could even see some improvement afterward. They gave him some sedation and paralytic drugs for his MRI, and it was so sweet to see his little face all relaxed. Here is a picture of it.

His MRI showed that he doesn't have an abscess on his brain which is really good. It just means that we still don't know where the infection is coming from. They believe that it could be in a valve in his heart, but the fifth echocardiogram hadn't come back yet. If this is the case, then they feel they are treating it correctly. We just need to keep waiting to see if the treatment is going to work.

As for the unofficial news... this is actually a kind of funny story... When Carter was in for his MRI, his oxygen monitor on his hand wasn't working correctly. The doctor decided to put it on his ear, which he soon found out Carter left somewhere in the womb (along with his gall bladder). This sparked the doctor's interest, so the nurse asked him to see if there was an inner ear on each side. She told us "unofficially" that Carter does indeed have inner ears which we hope means that he will be able to hear some day. While we know that he still needs an exam by an ENT to confirm this, we'll take a win wherever we can get it!