Friday, September 14, 2012

Another Fever & Next Steps

Liam had a fever again today. Today was our FIRST day this week that we had no planned reason to go to the hospital. Unfortunately, s a result of the fever, Liam had to go in tonight to get checked out and bloodwork done.

There is no obvious cause of the fever, but they decided to resume the antibiotics that Liam was on. These antibiotics are only available through IV, so we went to the hospital Sat through Wednesday to get the 15 minutes of antibiotics. We now have to continue going to the hospital again every day to continue the antibiotics until they see if Liam blood tests positive for any other bacteria or anything.

The nice thing is because Liam currently has his blood count up, he does have immunity, so we don't have to automatically stay at the hospital, like we have in the past when he's been neutropenic (no white blood cells to fight infection).

Assuming we don't end up admitting to the hospital this weekend (fingers crossed!), the next steps for Liam, are to proceed to Consolidation cycle #2 of 3.

Monday - Go to clinic and make sure Liam is fit to start
Monday night - Admit to Unit 1
Tuesday & Wednesday - Chemo (baths every 6 hours for a couple of days)
Monday Sept 24 - Stem Cell Rescue

Then, if cycle #2 follows #1, we stay in the hospital for 10 or so days after the stem cell rescue until Liam's blood cell counts come up.

We can hope that Liam's nausea and vomiting is not as bad this time, but that would be optimistic. Hopefully we can find the right combination of drugs that will help.

How is Liam doing / feeling?
Liam is definitely not as much of the energizer bunny as he has been. We have been getting him to walk to his appointments, and he does do fine, but he doesn't want to walk, he'd rather get a ride in the stroller. He is wanting to lay down more often through the day than he has.

Liam hasn't been eating much by mouth again, but his weight is staying around the same, at 15 kg. He's tolerating his NG feeds well, and isn't getting nauseous.

Before consolidation 1, Liam had some eyelashes left, those fell out now. His eyebrows are sparse, but he has some.

Liam has a meningocele (I think this is what it is called), a soft bump on the back of his head, where CSF leaked out after the last surgery. It is slowly getting smaller, it is not harmful and doesn't bother him, the CSF fluid slowly gets reabsorbed.

Liam's sleep varies every day, most days he naps, but not always.

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