{Karlton Bontrager}

Is it meningitis or is it not? The answer seems to vary according to the person we talk to. One person says the term is a general one used for any kind of infection in the cerebro-spinal fluid (CSF). Yet the lab has been unsuccessful at growing anything in the collected CSF samples. Maybe it’s something completely different, like a urinary tract infection. In any case, Karlton’s body is fighting an infection, though its location and specific type has yet to be identified.

Yesterday his temperature would spike to 39 degrees Celsius (102+ Fahrenheit), then come down again. Karlton had goose bumps on his arms and was complaining of feeling cold, but his nurse turned a fan on him and put a cold, damp wash cloth on his forehead to get the temperature down. In contrast, the day’s blood work indicated that his body and the antibiotics are winning the battle. By evening, his temperature was back to normal again.

The fever and the medications have made his mind groggy. Once again he sometimes tells us things that just don’t make sense. In the afternoon, he wanted me to take the blankets from the foot of his bed and roll them into a ball so he could use them as a pillow. At dinnertime, when Choy-Lang was encouraging him to eat, he told her that he had been to softball practice earlier and had eaten a big “softball meal.” I inserted that he should eat the food before him so that he’ll have the energy to run around the bases faster. But he wasn’t buying that. He looked at me incredulously and said, “How could I run? I can’t even walk.” He’s allowed to hallucinate, but we’re not.

The shunt from the base of his spinal chord is not draining properly. The bubble on the side of his head has grown big again, though it remains malleable. A resident checked out the mechanics of the shunt and could locate no problems there. But very little CSF is accumulating in the drain collection bag. Something is wrong here, and that is troubling. We keep holding our breaths, fearing that something else will go wrong. The good news is that light and noise are no longer such abrasive stimuli for him. And Karlton is able to rest.