Week 2 + ER

Well I keep thinking I need to update our blog for our other kids too. . .Courtney is 5 1/2 months old and is now liking food! She bawled the first time we tried to give her rice cereal. The kids want to feed her every time she eats, but she is still trying to figure it out.

Brady 'graduated' from preschool. It was actually pretty cute with his cap and walk with the graduation song. He is definitely having a harder time then the other kids right now, probably because he doesn't get quite as much attention lately which really throws him for a loop.

Lauren is still a trooper. She got her 2nd week of chemotherapy yesterday. She did well until around the time we were eating dinner. She was acting super tired and took 2 bites of dinner (her usual quota - 2 bites of food a meal since surgery). Brock sat by her on the couch and said she felt warm. Sure enough she had her first fever since starting chemo. I have to admit I took her temperature in both ears a few times. . .I didn't want to take her up and find out she really didn't have one. Well it was 102 degrees so I did what we are supposed to do and called the on call oncologist. She instructed me to head right to the ER for Lauren to be evaluated for a bacterial infection in her blood (since she has a central line). Sure enough her temperature was 38.9 Celsius when we got to the ER and she definitely started feeling sick while we were getting checked in and she was being assessed. She actually started to fall asleep during one of her assessments and looked pretty bad. She started looking better once her temp came down with Tylenol and after a few fluid boluses and a dose of Rocephin (an antibiotic for possible bacteremia that gets dosed every 24 hrs). Next step is to call the clinic this AM and see if we need to do anything else. They drew another CBC (complete blood count) and blood cultures. Her ANC went from 1500 pre chemo that day to 2700 with some immature white blood cells. She in anemic with thrombocytopenia, but those levels will continue to drop some as well as her WBC and ANC in the weeks to come. Who knows if it was stress from chemo that day vs an infection. By the time we got to go home she was feeling better and has actually slept all night! I never would have guessed we would have had her first ER trip by now, she has only had her port accessed 2 times before this visit. . .I had wishful thinking that we would get through all her treatments without a visit. Now I am sure this probably won't be the last.