Yesterday was a very interesting day. The morning was pretty exciting as Cris had been "acoustic" (no med lines/ "tubies") since the day before. The second they deaccessed him, he took off like a rocket and decided to climb on a chair.( I think I am up to my 53,982nd heart attack of the month.) He couldn't get out of the hospital fast enough.
He got to spend a grand total of 7 hours at the Ronald McDonald house before he spiked a fever and we had to rush back to the hospital. You haven't lived until you have run down the street, carrying your 60 pound child, trying to catch a cab at 11 pm. The cab driver thought I wanted to go into Harlem because, apparently Memorial Hospital sounds like Harlem. The cab ride ended with me screaming directions at him (we were only 5 blocks away, but he didn't know where to go) and throwing money into the front seat when we arrived. We spent almost 6 hours in the ER while they waited for his blood pressure to stabilize. At 4:40, we were finally able to go upstairs. By the time I finally fell asleep, it was almost 6 am. I got an amazing 2 hours of sleep last night. If you have ever spent time in a hospital you know that it is the worst place to get any rest. They wake you up every hour to check your vitals, administer meds, stop the pump from beeping, etc ... Cris slept through pretty much everything, so that was good. Come to think of it, he usually sleeps through everything. Oh well, I'll sleep when we go home. I'd rather have him sleep through the night, he needs the rest more than I do.
When Cris finally woke up, he started coughing and sneezing. He coughed so hard that he threw up. They gave him Tylenol to bring down his temp. They ran antibiotics through each of his 3 lines, one at at time over the course of several hours, to determine whether they could continue using the lines. They also took cultures of each of his 3 lines and nasal swabs. We won't have the results until Monday.
They think it could be one of two things:
1. His central line could be infected and may have to be removed. **I asked why they didn't just remove the line since, technically, his counts have recovered and it was only being left in place in case of an emergency. If the line was infected and it was removed, the probled would be solved. The Doctor said that I had a good point, but they didn't want to do anything until the test results come back.**
OR
2. He could have a viral infection. He is being treated with antibiotcs until the cultures come back. If it is viral, the antibiotics will be discontinued and he will only be on a saline hydration drip.
The good news is that they gave him Tylenol at 1 pm, and the fever didn't return until 10. The fever wasn't very high, so I'm thinking that's a good thing. When a child with cancer has a fever, it's a huge deal. With any other child, you can give them some Tylenol and they'll get better in a few days. When a child with cancer has a fever, it's an automatic trip to the ER, where they have to test for every possibility under the sun. The worst part is that our local ER is ill-equipped to deal with Cris and so we have to drive down to Memorial every single time he gets sick. Even when he had been off treatment for several months, we ended up driving into the city at midnight because he was sick. Cancer sucks.
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