Small Bit of News and I'm NOT Happy

Well, I went again to speak with the people at our local health department who need to sign the waiver before we can work on getting Gideon home.  The lady there is very kind, and has been extremely helpful.  However, the people in Raleigh, being that they have almost never had to deal with this before, are being terribly difficult.

I understand that they want to make sure Gideon is TB free before he travels, so do we.  And he has been on meds now since the beginning of February.  He had a negative sputum smear even in the beginning, so all this time we have just been waiting for the results of the culture to come back.  It will be 6 weeks on March 7th and they can look then to see if anything has grown.  If it was in fact TB something will more than likely show up by then, if it wasn't and nothing shows, they wait 2 more weeks until the full 8 weeks has passed and look at the culture again, just to make sure any of the slower growing TB bacteria hasn't cultured anything.  If still nothing, then he is clear, and no problem.  However if something did grow at some point during all that time, THEN they want to see yet ANOTHER culture be done and come back negative so that they can be sure that the meds they have him on are fighting off the bacteria and that his body is responding.

Now trust me, I understand the reasons for all this. but for goodness sakes, if it is TB and he is on the meds, in all likelihood he is not contagious anymore.  I know they have to be sure it isn't one of the resistant strains, but if he has to have yet another culture that means it is 6-8 weeks more then to read the results of that one too!!

I don't know quite what to pray for here any more.  I suppose the best thing would be for it to come back negative in the first place but I don't know that this is likely.  We have a infectious disease specialist here is Charlotte who is working with us on this, and she is trying to see if there is any way of getting the CDC to grant us some sort of appeal if we submit one, so we can go get him faster too, but I don't know the likelihood of that either.

All I can ask now is that you please pray for our family and for Gideon.  Pray that we can find a way to bring him home soon and not have to wait yet another 6-8 weeks for another culture.  Just pray.  Thanks.