Learned the Hard Way - Part 2

(Missed the background story? See Meningitis and Learned the Hard Way...)

I've been getting a lot of medical questions about our experiences, and I'm happy to answer them! But I also figured I'd address a few of the most popular here (from a layman's point-of-view - ask Josh if you want the technical answers):

-- Meningitis is not a bug, it's a result. Minor illnesses in anyone else can cause meningitis (inflammation of the membrane surrounding the brain and spinal cord) in a newborn because the newborn doesn't have the immune system to prevent it. Aaron and I may have had the same virus on the same day; in me it caused 12 hours of achiness and diarrhea; in Aaron, it caused 2 days of high fever (101-103) and inflammation of those membranes.

-- Viral meningitis is better than bacterial. If a virus causes the inflammation, there are no drugs to treat it but the body is better able to fight the infection on its own. If a bacteria causes the inflammation, antibiotics can help but the body still has more difficulty fighting the infection. Viral meningitis requires a 2-day hospital stay. Bacterial meningitis requires a 14-day hospital stay. Thankfully, Aaron's was viral.

-- There's no way to guarantee a newborn's protection. Our pediatrician said to avoid crowds, enclosed spaces, and sick people for the first 8 weeks of life. We wash our hands a lot, keep germx in every bag, and don't pass Aaron around for everyone to touch. But I still have to buy groceries, Noah's preschool starts next week, and Josh is in a hospital with sick people every day, so life goes on and we just have to pray that God will watch over us.

-- My spinal headache was not caused by the epidural. During labor, my contractions were so painful that I was offered a spinal anaesthesia (instant relief) at the same time they did the epidural. One of the known risks (1-2% chance) with a spinal is the possibility that the hole created in the spinal cord membrane continues to leak fluid after labor, causing the headache.

-- Spinal headaches are treatable. First with caffeine, then with a blood patch (injecting blood into the spinal cord so it clots over the hole until the cord membrane has a chance to heal itself in 7-10 days).

-- There was no connection between my spinal headache and Aaron's meningitis. I never had a bug - just a leak in my spinal cord membrane. Aaron had a bug that infected his spinal cord membrane. Just a coincidence - or providence, I suppose. Regardless, both have healed, and we are stronger as a result.

Addendum: It's now July 2016, and I feel the need to add that when I first wrote this, I thought our encounter with meningitis was over. His body had conquered it, and we all went home to live happily ever after. In some ways, that's true: Aaron is a smart, healthy boy and brings so much joy to our lives. We are living the happily ever after. But that doesn't mean the meningitis didn't have lasting effects that I have been helping him manage for the last 6 years. We don't know whether his learning challenges have resulted from genetics or the meningitis and associated fever, but the fact that the latter always comes up when we're discussing his medical or educational history--that the doctors all seem to think it's significant--has been a surprise to me. And it may explain why I've become more careful about germ exposure during these first couple months while most parents get less restrictive with each child.