A few days of respite

Believe it or not, but we were released from the hospital yesterday!
Peeper has been an outpatient since Thursday and, that's when we finally started to see some real change in his neutrophils. Friday when we came in to get his daily dosage of antibiotics, which had to be given intravenously, his neutrophils were at 0,2, which meant that they were up one unit from the day before. Still not good enough to start taking the antibiotics orally, the magic line is at 0,3, but still a heck of a lot better than before. Saturday however, they were up to 0,5 and, just like that, we were finally released.

it's easy to see that he's feeling better; he's playing again! And he's eating! Almost a whole carrot for lunch and, almost a whole dl of hot apple cereal before bedtime today and, he's even helping to put the spoon in his mouth. In our new normal I've had to constantly try to distract him to keep him from turning his head away, pushing the spoon out of my hand or, just plain refusing to open his mouth, so this is wonderful to see. on top of that he's of course nursing as usual and, I'm so thankful.

It's gotten me thinking of perspective again.

There's so much that we take for granted...

Even those of us who have experience loss...

We worry and agonize over potential harm to our little ones a lot more than others, but I can honestly say that nothing could prepare me for being forced to have to tube feed my 8-month-old, or to be grateful for every spoon full that he willingly puts in his mouth. It's nobodies fault... It's just the way life goes...

He's going back in tomorrow for some more blood work and, after that the final decision can be made on whether he will be capable to go to Stockholm for his second round of chemo or not.

It'd of course be best to get it done on time, so that the tumors are kept in check, but I doubt that they'll be able to go through with the EUA, cause he's still got a terrible cough and, I can feel the phlegm moving around in there if I put my hand on his back when he's breathing. It's still only in his upper Respiratory tracts and, the antibiotics he's taking now will cover a potential bacterial infection, which at this point with his immune system being so week could turn into pneumonia from one moment to the next, but where things stand right now they cannot give him any anesthetics...

Hopefully it doesn't take all day tomorrow. They screwed up the tests Saturday so we didn't get out of there until after 5 o'clock. .

The nurse from the day before put a little bit of Heparin too keep the blood from coagulating in the line. She said it's only necessary if one is going to wait for more that 24 hours before one uses the portacath again, but since he was going to have the antibiotics once a day, it was right on the edge and, if they got a little bit delayed it was better to have it in there than taking the chance of a blood clot.

This proved to be good thinking, since we cane in at 8:30 in the morning, but had to wait around until after 10 o'clock before they had time to hook him up to the IV.

With medication in the line, the nurse who takes the blood samples always gotta draw a bit out before the so to speak useful blood becomes available. I don't know if it was that the nurse from the day before didn't put in his file that she gave the Heparin, or if the nurse who took the samples hadn't read it properly, it wouldn't be the first time, but the blood that was sent to the Lab was too diluted to give accurate results. Something that became obvious when his red blood cell count came back at 48, a rather alarming number...

This was found out around 2 pm or so way after he's drip of antibiotics was done and, since they don't want to use the portacath unless it's absolutely necessary, especially not now that he's so hyper sensitive to infections, they had to prick his tow instead, which sort of counter fits the whole idea with the portacath... Part of the reason for him having it in there is to spare him all these constant pricking and poking with needles.

Believe it or not, but he didn't even say a peep. We had brought a new book for him with animals and with buttons which will produce the sound of the animal in the picture when pushed and, he was way to preoccupied with that to care what they did to him.

I'm glad it didn't seem to bother him, but at the same time it breaks my heart, cause it means that he is now so use to this that he has adjusted to it and, raised his tolerance level to a point where most adults I know would be complaining and,, noisily at that.

Anyway, after that it took another 3 hours before we finally were out of there. But we will at least have a couple of nights in our own bed, unless something unforeseen happens, before it's time to go back to the hospital again. A few days of respite before the nightmare can start over...