Fever Week

A day at Wolfson's Children's Hospital... a demonstration on liquid nitrogen from a museum of science employee... complete with ice cream sampling!

Unfortunately Christopher spent almost 5 days in this past week after developed a fever late Friday night. His blood counts had been progressively going down since his last round of chemo. When his ANC (absolute neutrophil count) fell to 30 on Thursday's blood check (from over 4,000 when he began chemo) his nurse called and told us to be careful and watch for fever.
Sure enough we were off to the ER early Saturday morning and he was admitted that afternoon. His counts were literally 0 and he had fevers on and off for the next few days. Just goes to show you how much one round of Chemo really attacked his system.
Christopher was given IV antibiotics and fluids as soon as we got to the ER. (One bonus of being an oncology patient is there is never a wait...he goes straight back to triage.) He continued to recieve them until he was with out fever and also could not be discharged until his counts were over 200. With the help of "Neupogen" via IV his last couple days there, the counts finally budged. He will be getting a similar injection after each chemo cycle called Neulasta which will not prevent his blood counts from dropping so drastically but it will help them come up faster. During the 5 days he was there he lost his hair which was very upsetting to him as he waited so long to get it back and had become quite attached to his new locks. I must say though he does sport a good looking bald head! He also lost his teenage appetite which is a big bummer for him as well! What he has not lost is his spirit...he is quite full of that and then some!
Next week will bring more blood work and a visit to the clinic for a physical. His counts will need to be at at least 1,000 before he can begin his next chemo cycle. (There are other aspects of his blood work that are looked at but the ANC is what they consider for overall immune system health.) He will begin his next round on Sunday December 19th and should finish by Christmas Eve. With any luck he will feel well enough to celebrate Christmas and enjoy some holiday cheer!

In the meantime Chris will get some school time in and enjoy his time at home.

Blessings to you all!

Patty