Stronger
He’s getting stronger, def. The boys visit was great, but I think it tired him more than he thought it would. The collective energy of a 4yo and a 9yo is pretty intense. Other Nurse D (we have two Nurse D!) was lovely to the boys, and they liked being there. Only a half hour, but I think we’ll wait a while on any other visits…
We walk the ward, back and forth. It’s about double the length of our house, so not very big. I beg each day to let me bring him outside, or even downstairs. Nope, not even with a mask. “He’s neutropenic, nope.” /sigh
While he was up this morning, he had the window blind open for a while, then the sunshine started to hurt his eyes. Wondering if I should bring in his sunglasses….
His numbers haven’t really shifted this week. He got 2 pools of platelets while I was there today.
WBC: 0.4
Hg: 8.9 (that’s with no blood for about 16 hours)
Platelets 31
We’re adding a new number here: Neutrophils. This is the biggie now…right now they’re at 0.0. They are the numbers we want to see coming back up, slowly but surely. I don’t know the range that they’re looking for, but that’s now the number to concentrate on.
As for how much longer, we just don’t know. I thought it would be another week or so, but I was told that it could be another 4 weeks. It all depends on the neutrophils and when everything starts to recover. B is getting the blood because his marrow isn’t making blood right now, and they have to keep the levels right (same with platelets, if even higher to protect against infection and hemorrhaging). The docs said that they’re expecting the numbers to start to rise in the next week or so, but if they haven’t started, they’ll give him a bit of growth hormone to see if that kicks the marrow back into gear. One doc said that caffeine is a marrow stimulant, but I don’t think I’m bringing him any triple espressos.
So for now, we sit and wait. And wait. Gin rummy is still fun. We were working on a project today that turned out to be nothing, but hey, it exercised our brains for a bit. Books are still out right now. I might teach him to knit, if he doesn’t watch his fingers….
Today’s shoutouts: Joanne, for the dinner (and cause she said she wanted a shoutout!); Nurse D and her lovely curly hair, no matter what you others think; Miriam and Roisin for coming all the way out here with a cottage pie for the freezer; and Magda who gets a perpetual one, cause she’s my biggest supporter right now, and I hope we can be hers (kick butt in volleyball!!!)
