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Saturday, February 25, 2012

A Calm Among The Chaos

Last night we had a bit of chaos in room 1415.   Emilie has had intermittent fevers for the last five days and antibiotic after antibiotic has not gotten rid of the fevers, so last night they started a new, strong anti-fungal med in hopes of stopping the fevers.  Well, 15 minutes into the dose, Emilie started having an allergic reaction complete with difficulty breathing and coughing.  This led to her heart rate increasing, blood pressure dropping, oxygen saturation dropping, and of course lots of nurses and docs in the room.   Prior to the new med, she was given "pre-meds" (Benadryl and Tylenol) to prevent an allergic reaction.  So, on top of all her numbers dropping, she was doped up on Benadryl, which made things a little bit scarier.  About an hour after treating her reaction, she was pretty much back to normal, but her little body was exhausted so she took a good nap.  Thankfully, Eric (who had not been at the hospital for 5 days), showed up 10 minutes into the reaction.  It was nice having him here!!!

Every morning, Emilie's docs make daily rounds and today, they had super news.  Emilie's white blood cell (WBC) count went from 300 to 600 which gave her an absolute neutrophil count (ANC) of 400. When Emilie has three days of an ANC of 500+, Nicolas' bone marrow is officially engrafted. Woohoo!!!! The docs think that her WBC may double again...we're hoping for a WBC of 1200 tomorrow.  An increase in WBC also means that her immune system is recovering and will slowly be able to keep "bad guys" away. (Click HERE for more info on BMT. )  Really, really great news.  Every day has its blessings and challenges, but we know that...
  
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Psalm 46:1
and
Be still and know that I am God. 
Psalm 46:10

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3 comments:

Auntie Vicki said...

Heart sinking moments to hands up! Counts up, grateful. XXXOOOOO

Linda said...

Whew! What a roller coaster ride! And such good news. We look forward to much more!

Love,
Linda

Mary McConnell said...

so glad to hear things are better! We're cheering for you babycakes!