Gabriel has had a central line and been on TPN and Lipids since October of last year, due to having chronic Norovirus. The Norovirus has wreaked havoc on his gut, causing it to not be able to absorb nutrients. This caused him to drop down to 19 pounds over time, and that is when they decided to place the central line and supplement nutrition. And it worked amazingly, he gained weight and got up to 26 pounds! But he still had major symptoms of Norvirus, like constant diarrhea, like bad, every time, all the time. All of this, caused his episode in mid December, where his intestines, tired, from dealing with Norovirus, Intussusceped itself, pushing bacteria up and into his heart. Within 2-3 hours a vegetation had grown on the valve they had JUST replaced in October in his last open heart surgery. We dealt with all his doctors not communicating, adding to our stress, because some were saying he needed another open heart surgery to replace the conduit and valve again immediately, while others said no, lets wait and see. This went back and forth for about a week or so, until they all finally had a sit down with each other, and decided to run a 6 week, 24/7 antibiotic course, in hopes that it would completely kill off all the bacteria in his heart. They did weekly heart echos to check on the vegetation size, to ensure it wasn't growing, also hoping that it would shrink in size. It did not shrink. It has stayed the same size, but is stable. At the beginning of all this, Gabriel had been on an oral antiviral that was really the only thing that helped at all with his Norvirus symptoms. But due to insurance not renewing their special pricing agreement of around $900 a bottle (a bottle is a weeks worth for Gabe), his doctors had to find another medicine. They decided to try another medicine, that would help balance out the good and bad bacteria in his gut. (For those of you that may not know, everybody has bacteria in their gut, good and bad, and they serve their purpose). Gabriel's gut was just overrun with bad bacteria, and had very little good bacteria in it. After about two weeks or so, we noticed that his stool had started to change, he was having less diarrhea, and stool we hadn't seen from him in over a year. We decided to ask for them to test his stool again, to see if he was absorbing anything naturally. So last Thursday, his stool had gotten even better. Chelsy had picked up the sample containers, and we sent stool samples in. The next day, Chelsy saw that some of the results had posted from Gabe's samples, and saw that some of the results showed that there were certain fats missing from his stool (WHICH IS A GOOD THING!) That means that his body is absorbing again!! Also, last Thursday was the last day of his 6 week antibiotic course, spending all this time at the Ronald McDonald house, the plan was for him to stay there 24-48 hours after coming off the antibiotics for the bacterial infection in his heart, to see if he ran a fever (that was going to be the first indicator that the antibiotics had not killed off all the bacteria). He didn't run a fever for 48 hours. So we were ready to bring him home. I woke up Sunday morning, to pick up Chelsy and the kids from the Ronald McDonald house, and bring everyone home finally. After almost 7 weeks of being apart. I called Chelsy, to talk about how we were loading everything up, etc. And she said he felt warm. After getting a thermometer from the Ronald McDonald house staff, he indeed was running a low grade fever... my heart sank. He was acting fine though, it wasn't like when he was rushed to the ER in December at the beginning of all this. When I got there, I loved on him, heartbroken because I had told him I was coming to bring him home the day before. We noticed a spot under his dressing for his central line, that we saw was irritated, from an emergency dressing change we had to do one day when I was there, and the supply company, as usual, had not supplied enough chloroprep, and we had to use an alcohol prep pad to clean his central line site. Doing this, in turn with the CHG in his dressing, caused a chemical reaction, and he had a sore next to his central line. Gabriel was admitted to Cooks, again, Sunday. They ran bloodwork to see if anything showed up indicating that his heart was still infected. The bloodwork came back, and showed that his heart does not appear to be infected still. The inflammatory markers they were checking for were actually really really good, in regards to his stool samples, they were better than they have ever been! He has been back on antibiotics, and the wound from the chemical reaction next to his central line site started looking a lot better! At this point, the doctors believe that the cause of his fever, was the sore from the chemical reaction on his skin. But with all of this, and the wound being so close to his central line, they decided after seeing the results of his stool samples, and knowing that he is absorbing nutrients again, to remove the central line today! So as of this morning, Gabriel is cordy free! (Cordy is what we called his central line). He is doing good, besides having a rough day today. As of right now, the plan is for him to stay at Cooks until Thursday, just to keep an eye on him. So thank you all for your prayers, and your support. We are eternally grateful for your prayers, love, and support!