Little goofy
Brendan is a little slow, we just realized. Yea, verily. Guess it’s, ya know, the chemo. Good excuse for everything. But it finishes in two days, so what will be his excuse then?
Right now, he’s only allowed sparkling water because he’s on a clean diet. He now hates sparkling water. We asked yesterday if there’s anything else he can have, and apple juice was on the list. I ran downstairs and got him a couple juice boxes from the coffee shop, and today brought in a liter of apple juice (has to be drunk in 24 hours tho, so start chugging, B!). He’s worked out that sparkling water with a splash of apple juice is “refreshing and enjoyable”. He says the key is flavour, since the water is really just blah.
I caught a glimpse of the scans from yesterday, just the brain one. I asked where his front temporal lobe was, and they showed me the comparison of the right temporal and left temporal lobes. I don’t know if it’s regrown or what, but there was a right-shaped shadow on the scan. Wild. The chest scan shows that there is an unmistakable infection in his lungs. But as he’s on super antibiotics and antifungals, they’re expecting to wipe it out pretty simply. Even with the markers for infection down through the floor, there’s still one there. The good part is that he doesn’t really feel any infection so it’s not bothering him, and he’s been off the oxygen for most of the time I’ve been here (his O2 sats were 100%! Overachiever!)
On Friday he’s having a bronchoscopy, to try to get a better idea of what the infection is. So he’s fasting from midnight on Fri morn til 6, when the scope will happen. Better than today, when they tried to schedule one right after he ate lunch and took a nap…I had to empty all his drink cups while he was asleep and tell him he couldn’t have anything to drink when he woke up! He was BUMMED, but then, they couldn’t do it tonight and he had some juice and life was good. Dr O was really pushing to get the scope done tonight with the department, but I think everyone’s okay with it waiting a bit.
We now have to say hi to all the nurses who have been looking after B, as they’re starting to get competitive about who’s mentioned in here!! Nurse D is behind me right now, checking B’s levels (his O2 sat is now 95%, slacker). Nurse S was very kind and gave us each a bun (cupcake) from another nurse who brought them in today. Nurse N gave him excellent care earlier in the week when she was looking after B. Nurse L, who I think is in charge of the ward right now, is quiet but once in a while he laughs, which is nice. Hope they start commenting and telling me if I’m getting my info right!
He’s gotten 2 pools of platelets today, which is great. Chemo too, but overall it’s been a mellow day today. Fever isn’t as present (he had one spike, but looks like paracetamol brought it down).
Levels today are… /drumroll
White blood cells 0.2
Hemoglobin 9.2
Platelets 38
B got a card yesterday from all the teachers and SNAs and admin at the school. You all are lovely, thank you!
Tonight’s shoutout is to the lovely L, who dropped off a chicken curry and rice at the house tonight. :-* And to the nurses, all of ye. You’re the shizzle, I don’t know what we would do without you!
