Tom's counts bottomed out again - he's had absolutely zero neutrophils for several days in a row now, meaning he has no protection from germs and infections. He had a fever on Wednesday night that was 38.5 C when he was admitted, and spiked up to 39.7 (almost 104 Fahrenheit) that night. The fever seems to be resolved now, but because his blood culture tested positive for bacteria on Wednesday night, he is on heavy duty antibiotics to fight off infection. We're likely here for a few more days. We are keeping his door shut at the hospital, because there seems to always be babies with bad croupy coughs nearby...poor little ones...but we don't want Tom to pick up any additional problems.
There've been some new diagnoses in the last few months - new cases of Burkitts Lymphoma, Wilms Tumor, and two new ALL (acute lymphocytic leukemia - a.k.a. the 'good kind'). We were relieved to hear of the new Leukemia patients, because it was seeming to us 'cancer moms' that all the cases lately were complicated ones, and we didn't like the trend we were seeing!
For those who may not know: to the rest of the world, Leukemia is not a good news story. But in the cancer world, a diagnosis of straight, garden variety ALL leukemia is good news. Of all the cancers your child might have, this one has a cure rate of over 90%. We should all be so lucky...
Between the new families and those already in treatment, oncology cases are taking up about half of the available beds on most days, over here in Pasqua Pediatrics. We saw an article in the paper recently that the Health District is still planning to combine the General and Pasqua Peds units into one. Yes, for only $23 million, they will move all the pediatrics over to the General, and create 3 more beds than the combined units have now.
Tom's sisters have been his main visitors and source of entertainment this week: Jeanine came up one afternoon and watched another installment in the Star Wars series with Tom. (They are working their way through the series, in sequential order.) Nancy made it home from Minot, and was up yesterday afternoon with her friend Natasha to visit. Laura brought us movies and junk food, and most importantly, homemade apple noodles, and watched a movie with us last night. (Mike is fighting off a cold and doesn't want to share it with Tom or anyone else on the ward.)
Tom's levels of potassium, magnesium and sodium phosphate are all depleted, so he's been getting top-ups of all those minerals via IV. He had platelets Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and red blood on Thursday and Friday. They are testing his blood every day, and we are waiting for signs that his immune system is beginning to recover. Today his neutrophils are 0.4, and his platelet and hemoglobin levels are up enough that he won't get any transfusions today. So we may be on the right track...
If you are healthy though, we'd love to have you visit. Tom's feeling pretty good, but boredom is your main enemy at this point.
Thanks for stopping by, and thanks for your prayers. We're so grateful for your continued support.
TTYL,
Thomas' Mom
P.S. Thanks also to the 'cookie fairy', whomever you may be! (A kind soul left a bag of goodies in our mailbox earlier this week. Yummm.)
