Constant Checking

I started the day with a phone call from the nurse practitioner - she wanted to inform me that overnight Ryan had had a temperature of 102.4 and his blood pressure dropped and heart rate went up again as it did the other night. Ryan was feeling better when she called and she told me that he was sitting up in bed reading a phone book. I thought that was pretty strange for Ryan, so once we were done talking, I called him. He was in bed, eating breakfast, and I asked him about reading the phonebook. He said he wasn't reading the phone book and so I asked him what he was reading. He told me that he was reading the Fastline (tractor ads and such), I thought that was quite funny that the nurse practitioner that it was a phone book. :)

Around 9:30, Aubrey, my mom, and I got to the hospital. Ryan was awake for a while, but then fell asleep, so Aubrey amused herself by pushing her stroller around and then drawing on the white board in the room. Around 11, she and mom took off to head for home.

Ryan's white count was down to 1 today, platelets were 10 and so he got a bag of platelets, his hemoglobin was 8.3 and so he didn't need any blood today. Ryan's temperature has been hanging out around 99 today, it was 97 the last time they took it around 8. His blood pressure was low this morning and they've been watching it all day - the last two times they've taken it, it was getting much closer to normal.

The doctors are watching his chemistry levels very closely because as the chemotherapy kills the white blood cells, they break down and release potassium, calcium, magnesium, etc. into his blood. They have to make sure these levels stay in a certain range, so they check these levels two to three times during the day. Things look good tonight. He has been sleeping since after he ate supper. He hasn't needed any nausea or pain medicine today, so that is a positive note.

He will have two more doses of chemo, tomorrow night and Wednesday morning. Then we will see after that how he is feeling, what his counts are doing, and then they'll decide when he gets to come home. Hopefully, not too many days after; it is nice to stay in a hotel, but when it isn't for a fun trip, it isn't so fun (although Aubrey likes the swimming pool).

Prayers for Ryan's temperature to stay down and his blood pressure to level off at normal. We are also prayerful that the chemo will be strong enough to get the leukemia under control so Ryan will be able to get some immune cells from Russell to give his immune system a boost.

-A