Collin was discharged from the hospital last Sunday, November 20 after a short stay for chemo. Thankfully it was a quick, uneventful stay, and he tolerated the chemo very well. Most of our week was spent at home, as he only had one therapy appointment on Wednesday. We had a great Thanksgiving at home on Thursday with Bill's family and some close friends.
On Friday we had a 9:00 clinic appointment for a doctor visit and bloodwork. The bloodwork showed that Collin's ANC was 0, which means he is neutropenic and has no immune system. It also showed his hemoglobin and hematocrit had dropped, so the doctor ordered a blood transfusion. Everything went smoothly, but we spent over seven hours in the clinic, so it was a long day.
A little after 6:00 that evening, Collin felt warm to me, so I took his temperature. It was 100.3. In an oncology patient, a fever is the first sign of an infection which can be very dangerous for someone with no immune sysytem, so we can't give Tylenol and hope it goes away. We have to watch it carefully and call the doctor if it is 100.5 for four hours, or if it reaches 101. We checked his temperature about every hour, and watched it creep up to 100.4, then 100.5, and finally 101.3. I called the hospital, spoke to the doctor, and was told to bring him directly to the pediatric oncology unit at the hospital. He was admitted, blood cultures were drawn to see if there was an infection brewing, and he was started on a broad spectrum antibiotic.
Yesterday afternoon we found out that the cultures had started to grow, which means Collin does indeed have an infection. The bacteria that is growing is called gram negative bacteria, which can be very serious. Some examples of gram negative bacteria are e-coli, salmonella, shigella, pseudomonas, and legionella. We won't know what specific bacteria he has until the cultures grow more. Usually someone with gram negative bacteria is pretty sick, so it's amazing that Collin is feeling as well as he is (he was much sicker when he had a gram negative infection last year). He doesn't have much of an appetite and his energy level is lower, but his fever is gone, and he's not throwing up. Along with the broad spectrum antibiotic, he is now on a more specific antibiotic that treats gram negative infections, and once we know for sure what the exact bacteria is, he could be given yet another antibiotic. He'll have to be on antibiotics for ten to fourteen days, which means we'll be in the hospital for a bit longer than we hoped. Once his bloodcounts start coming up, and the blood cultures are finally negative, hopefully he can finish the antibiotics at home.
As always, thank you so very much for your prayers and well wishes-they mean a lot to us!
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