In my last update, I mentioned that PenDell had been diagnosed with West Nile virus. Well, the following day a different Infectious Disease doc came in (he is young and I have been encouraging him to keep digging!) and told me that he sees that PenDell has at some time had West Nile because he has the “long-term” antibody. However, he does not have the short-term antibody which would be an indicator of a current infection and there are four other indicators that lead him to think that West Nile is not the culprit for this disruption, or at least not the only culprit. One of the indicators is the way that the abnormal activity is presenting in his brain. He has Meningitis, which is swelling around the brain and he also has what they are calling nodules of abnormal activity going into his brain tissue.

He recommended that PenDell go back on Cipro and Doxycycline which are two big antibiotics. They started with the Cipro and after two doses, PenDell woke up and was engaging with us and he ate a full meal. We are all quite pleased!

There are more tests pending that will hopefully give us more clues.

Every time PenDell has had a setback, he comes back with more deficit. This time he came back and he doesn’t know who I am. I see this as a detail that we will take care of once we get the larger issues taken care of. ❤️️