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Easter At Riley??
Daniel had a rough day yesterday. Andrea reported that
he was in tears most of the day without even really knowing why.
Wednesday (day before) he was at the clinic getting his last chemo of
this "phase". It was a single drug, but his red cells were low enough
that they gave him blood, which takes an additional 4 hrs & makes
for a long day. It's just never easy.
He had been running a low
grade fever all day, and by evening it began creeping up. We gave him
Tylenol shortly before bed and it came right down, so I went to bed
& hoped for the best. I got up around 4 to check him and it was
back up to 102.5 or so. Previous experience prevented me from
immediately rushing him to Riley ER even though that's actually what
they tell us to do. I gave him another dose & set my alarm for
6:00a. At 6 it was down to about 100.2 so I chose to wait until the
clinic opened in a few hours. By 9 this am, it was back up to 102.7 so
it was off to the clinic. Andrea took him in while I came in to work.
But Daniel was in tears - sobbing actually - at the thought of yet
ANOTHER trip to the hospital. He tried everything he could think of to
talk me out of it. I HATE being the one to force this stuff and am often
feeling really alone in doing so anymore. It's not always good to be
the dad. Andrea reports that he's been very stressed at the hospital as
well all day. It's likely that some of the emotional component is due
to Wed's chemo, and also the fever itself.
Now at nearly 2:00,
they're just getting around to giving him the antibiotic (no idea what
the staff has been doing all this time since that's the PRIMARY thing
they do for him, but I'm trying not to get too wrapped up about that.)
His white counts (and therefore immune system) have dropped
significantly since even Wed and are now within just a few points of an
automatic admission to the hospital. They'll check his fever again soon
and if it's not climbing, will likely release them to come home. But if
it climbs again overnight, it will definitely mean an admission. And
if it's going up now, will probably mean the same thing.
I'm
going to go out and look for some kind of gift to bring him and
hopefully get his mind off it all. Not the way we'd hoped to spend
Easter weekend, but we know God has always been and will continue to be
in the midst of all that happens. Please keep us in your prayers
Specifically:
1. Peace and comfort for Daniel
2. Healing from whatever is causing the fever (an infection of some kind)
3. Strength for all 3 of us
We
wish EVERYONE a wonderful and blessed Resurrection weekend remembering
the unimaginable sacrifice our Lord went through on our behalf and His
ultimate demonstration of victory over sin, death, disease, and all
things that could come between us and our Heavenly Father.
Grace and Peace to all.
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I don't know if this will help or not, but something went through our family in the early winter, and the first symptom was being very emotional with no real reason. The first one to get sick was Gemma, 7, and I wondered if it was some new phase in her development. But then Alec, 15, suddenly started saying how depressed he was and started crying in the car on the way home from a sports practice, saying he was terrible at everything. Then Bella, then 12, was loosing her temper over the angle of her dresser. Fever was the next symptom. Some of our friends had the same thing later, and realized that teariness and/or temper was the first symptom. Very odd, but not terribly bad as these things go. I know everything is potentially serious for Daniel now. We used Lauricidin in its natural form, so maybe your docs could prescribe it for him.
ReplyDeleteThank you! Yes, it is very helpful to know that the emotional component was most likely part of the infection rather than continuing general psychological complications. Very much appreciated.
ReplyDelete