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August 5, 2004 -- Maintenance #5 (Days 12-15) We're still at CHOP and will be here for at least another few days. Just to recap what's been going on, I took Katie to the clinic on Tuesday afternoon for an unscheduled visit to have her mouth checked. Her face was swollen on the right side and she was complaining when she ate and drank. At the clinic, they did a CBC and checked her mouth sore. Dr. Leahy told us to keep an eye on things and bring her back if the sore got worse or she had a fever. Her ANC had dropped to 34. As I was getting her ready for bed that night, I noticed she felt warm. Her temp was 101.6. The oncologist on-call at CHOP told me to bring her immediately to the ER. After receiving infusions of 3 different antibiotics, she was admitted. Yesterday, Katie's ANC was zero -- yes zero. That's means her body has no ability to fight anything. They swabbed the sore on her mouth, which is now spreading to both sides of her mouth. There was no bacterial infection found in her mouth sore and her blood cultures have all come back negative for bacterial infection in the blood. Huge relief!! She was taken off one of the antibiotics from Tuesday night and put on another that will prevent any infection in her mouth from forming. Today her ANC was up to 25. She still hasn't been able to eat or drink anything since she's been here because of the pain from the mouth sores, which are on both sides of her mouth now. She has been on IV fluids since she was in the ER and they will continue until she is able to drink enough to keep her from dehydrating. They are also giving her morphine to ease her pain. She has been only able to eat popcicles. Dr. Jill believes that Katie had a virus that brought her ANC down over the past two weeks. When Katie bit the inside of her mouth on Monday, it became inflamed, infected and made her ANC bottom out. It was just mind boggling to see how fast she deteriorated from Tuesday afternoon, when she first complained that her mouth was bothering her to when she was admitted. It was only a matter of hours!!! Goes to show you what low ANC and fevers can do to these cancer kids. Today was a fun day at the hospital (that's a real oxymoron!). It was Family Fun Day for the oncology kids, sponsored by Michael's Way . They had crafts, face painting, characters, magicians, musicians, pop corn, snow cones, cookie decorating, caricatures, and even Build-A-Bear. It had a lot of us cancer moms in tears seeing these kids have fun when they are so sick. Katie's favorite thing to do was the bear and cookie decorating. There ARE some very good people in this world. I'll update again when I can. Thank you for keeping Katie in your thoughts and prayers. Here is Katie's ANC since last update: All meds except antibiotics being held until August 18. August 4, 2004: ANC 0. August 5, 2004: ANC 25. |
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