Baby Ethan in need of prayers....

Ok, our whole extended family has been in a serious state of freaking out/shock right now.

My aunt took Ethan to the doctor to his two month appointment Monday to get his first round of shots.

Typically, day after this babies tend to run a light fever and be slightly lethargic. (Little bodies fighting big bad - toned down - virus strains, it makes sense.)

However, Ethan was pretty much lying there not being very responsive or crying or doing much of anything, so my aunt (go mommy instincts!) freaked out and took him back to the doctor's office. The doctor really didn't like Ethan's breathing, etc, so she had my aunt take him right to the hospital and called ahead so they've be expecting him.

As soon as they get to the hospital (at which time my aunt is crying, etc, because nobody knows what's wrong with her baby) a team of doctor/nurses swoop down on Ethan.

(BTW to catch up on rest of Tueday story, my uncle's caught in LA traffic, so he takes him a long time to get to the hospital.

Either him or my aunt called her parents/my grandparents who call my family. We proceed to generally freak out and be sobbing messes because at this point the doctors think Ethan is in a coma- remember, TWO MONTHS OLD.

My mom and I stay up all night- we get the phone call about Ethan being at the hospital between nine and ten our time- finding her a flight across the country, getting her packed, prayed, cried, settle things here so the four of us 'kids' can hold down the fort until my mom can come back, go to the bank, pray and cry some more, decide we don't have time to go to the 24 hour grocery store, and get her out the door by 5:30 am Weds. Needless to say, sleeping definately wasn't on the list of things happening. I got my sibs off to school and then crashed until after noon.)

When they got Ethan to the hospital his blood sugar level was about 850 (should be around 150, poor sweetie), and it's since gone down to about 80 late last night (Weds), so the doctors were going to kill/cut down the amount of insulin he was getting through IV at that point.

Ethan's got eight IV holding posts (what is the name for these?) which lead (according to my mom) about 50 different wires, tubes, etc back to shunts in both his hands and both his feet. (I didn't have time to ask, but we knew going into this that doctors sometimes can put shunts in babies heads' as their skulls still haven't completely hardened yet, so he may have another one there and/or his arms.)

He was on oxygen since Tuesday, but his respitory readings were looking good, so the doctors took him off that around an hour ago. Ethan's been sedated since they got to the hospital, and I don't know yet when they're going to take him off of that. The doctors did let him off of those drugs a little yesterday (not enough for him to completely wake up, though) and he was moving his arms and legs around, which is apparently really, really good.

It's hard to imagine our little guy with so many tubs and things coming off of him, though, esp looking at the pictures. :(

My uncle texted me this morning that Ethan is "in stable but critical condition," which is not good, but still a LOT better then he was Tuesday PM when they took him in.

The doctors can't agree on whether or not Ethan has diabetes at a really young age (which would be weird, as he was only 6.5 lbs when he was born two months ago, generally only 10 lbs. plus at birth babies run the risk of diabetes this early generally) or not, but something's up with his pancreas one way or the other. He also was having trouble digesting proteins properly, so they have him on medication for that. Hopefully we get a diagnosis soon!

However, my uncle all of his vital organs are still in good shape, which is fantastic because babies/people tend to have their organs shut down with their levels get this far out of wack. (= completely non-medically termed explaination)

Having my mom this far away is a little strange- I had 1500 miles when I was at school, but she's never been this far away from my siblings in their lives which is taking some adjusting to. (Everyone has so far :knock on wood: been well behaved, though. Luckily older younger brother that likes to cause trouble and is SO VERY SEVENTEEN RIGHT NOW YOU JUST WANT TO KNOCK HIM OUT WITH A 2 x 4 UNTIL HIS BIRTHDAY is working prom this weekend, so he should stay in line for that.) Mom comes home on Tuesday now, and since Ethan only seems to be getting better, we shouldn't need to change this.

Thank you again for keeping our little guy in your prayers!

PS: My aunt texted me and Ethan's breathing tube is out and my aunt might get to hold him in an hour!!! :)

Edited with shots of world's sweetest baby, lol.