Almost Made It!

If William was going to follow trend, he should have landed back in the hospital yesterday afternoon (Thurs). I took his temperature often throughout the day. No fevers! Yay! He made it past his trend. He seemed good and perky and although the mouth sores have begun their cycle, he managed to eat a little food. After dinner, he announced he was really tired and wanted to go to bed early! Music to my ears! But not from William. I was worried, but chalked it up to having made it through 4 rounds of chemo and the exhausting toll of it all on his little body. He was sound asleep by 6:45 PM.

I checked his temperature at midnight and he had a fever of 100.8. I'm supposed to call at 100.3 or higher. I suspected that he was neutropenic by now and that would mean automatic hospital admittance. Our room was warm, windows closed, and William had on 2 blankets. We opened windows, ran the AC and removed his blankets. His fever disappeared. (I think that may have been cheating, but that's how bad I didn't want to go to the hospital.) I couldn't sleep out of worry and woke up every hour throughout the night to take his temperature. If he had a fever, I would take it again and wait a few more minutes and take it again until I felt justified in going back to sleep. I sound like an awful, selfish mother, but I must add that we had a clinic visit to see the doctor and have blood drawn in the morning. I really wasn't that negligent. It's kind of like waiting for the contractions to really get going.

We showed up to the clinic visit fully packed to be admitted. I was honest about my night's activities with the thermometer so they drew blood for blood cultures (infection). His ANC was 0 (no immune system) and because he had a fever during the night, we are now sitting on the sixth floor of the hospital for at least the next 48 hours. The tender mercy here is that we finally have a private room. I really needed that for my own sanity. (see the stress post that Lisa trumped!) :)

Thankfully, my sister, Angela, is here so I had the kids covered without any effort. The main logic and purpose of her visit this week was to help with unexpected hospital stays. Do I say I'm glad we didn't disappoint? She's been fantastic with the school drop offs and pick ups and bedtimes and meals and endless entertainment. I am truly blessed to have such an amazing, supportive family. And having 7 siblings has it perks in times like these!