Hello friends- It has been a tough week. Mason continues to fight a fever and has just felt icky all week. The medical staff are doing everything they can to help him get more comfortable, but we've had some long days and nights. He has spent most of his time sleeping and/or watching the Marvel movies in chronological order- skipping just a few here and there on movies he didn't like the first time he watched them.

The infection was found to be contracted through one of his CVL lines and was caused by a bacteria called Rothia. This is a bacteria that lives in the mouth and gut of everyone, but it is not a common bacteria to cause infections. However, it is known to affect AML patients when their immune system is compromised for lengths of time due to treatment. Apparently this is a tricky bacteria to treat, but Mason was immediately placed on the one antibiotic that does combat the disease (before they even knew what it was), so at this time, they will just continue to give him the antibiotics regularly.

This bacteria likes to find places in the organs to set up and live, so the doctors called for all the scans- heart, chest, abdomen. The echo cardiogram earlier this week did show some strands in his heart, near the line where the infection started. However, a repeat echo from last night shows that those strands have cleared, which seems to be good news.

The chest scans did show some very small nodules in Mason's lungs. It is unclear if these are caused by the bacteria or by some other type of infection, so they did add an anti-fungal medication to treat for possible fungal infection as well. His abdomen shows that the appendix is either still recovering from the prior appendicitis or is starting to flare again. The antibiotics he is on should help to prevent this. And either way, the appendix still looks much better than it did on that prior scan.

The good news is that we have two days of cultures that show no infection, so all the treatment does appear to be working. They won't declare anything fully cleared until they have three days of clear cultures. We are praying that we can see that result soon.

Mason has been able to eat some small portions of food here and there, but we have been focused this week on allowing him to rest and not push too much of anything.

His blood counts remain very low, which is still to be expected for this round of treatment. We hope to see those start to recover within the next week, which will also help him start to feel better and stronger.

We would appreciate all the prayers- for clear blood cultures, for the fever to finally break, for Mason to get some solid rest for his body, for increased appetite, and for this bacteria not to find any other organs to live in.

Smilegrams continue to be the highlight of Mason's days while he is resting- the other day they were delivered to him straight from his favorite therapy dog, Blanche.

Thank you for your continued support!