Sunday morning, while getting the kids up and ready for church, Jordon told me he could not get out of bed because his ankle hurt so much. His ankles have hurt him off and on throughout the last few months, but when I went to check on him, his ankle was swollen. When Jordon tells us he is in pain, we always ask him to tell us how bad it is on a scale from 1-10. Jordon said his ankle pain was a 10. I made a call to Children's and his oncologist was on call. She told me to give him a pain pill (which he nearly refuses to take), put ice on his ankle and see if he is still having pain. The pain medication makes Jordon dizzy and he would rather deal with the pain then have an out of body experience, but we negotiated and he took a half of a dose. None of this worked, so the doctor suggested we go to the nearest ER. His doctor had called ahead and upon arrival they got him right in. They did an x-ray and checked his counts (last blood count was near perfect). Jordon's had no immune system and hemoglobin and platelets were low. The x-ray showed no apparent injury and they sent us home and told us to watch him for fever or infection. Since Jordon has no immune system, his response is different. His ankle may have an infection in it, but the typical redness wouldn't be apparent since the immune system is what makes that response. Well of course I was a bit anxious. I gave Jordon his daily shot before bed and it immediately swelled and turned purple (low platelets). Another call to the doctor and she said with his platelets that low bruising was typical. We took his temperature after he went to bed and it was 99.1. I wondered if this meant it was on its way up so I woke up at 3 am and took it again. He was 101.5. Since we knew he was neutropenic (no immune system) and he was running a fever, that is an automatic admission to Children's. I called his doctor, once again, and she advised us to go to the nearest hospital and she would arrange for transport. Once we got to the hospital, the started IV antibiotics, took blood cultures, and another blood count. We waited for the ambulance and arrived at Children's around 11 am Monday morning.
The requirements for Jordon to go home were; to have an immune system, no fever for 24 hours, and negative blood cultures for two days. Fortunately Jordon's blood cultures were always negative. The doctors said that Jordon body was reacting to a bacteria but not in the blood. They assumed he had bacteria in the mouth or on a wound on the body (although they could not prove it through cultures). But Jordon ran a fever the first couple of days of being admitted and was neutropenic for 4 days (through Thursday). Friday morning Jordon woke up with an A.N.C of 2900! This means we were going home. Kids don't generally go from essentially no A.N.C. to 2900 (almost normal) in one day, but Jordon does.
When we got home Jordon wanted to go to the homecoming game. Since his immune system was good and he had been out of the social scene for a while we pulled up just after the game started. The weather just over 70 degrees so it was beautiful.
Since being home Jordon has felt really good. He has been a little tired but has managed to stay active and eat well.
This week will bring an important scan and the start of another round of chemo. The scan tomorrow (Tuesday) will determine whether or not Jordon is in remission. Our pray is that if it is the Lord's timing it will show that the tumor is completely gone and Jordon has no cancer in his body. If the cancer is gone tomorrow Jordon will continue on maintenance chemo for 6-9 months. I have to say I am nervous...nervous like I have a big test tomorrow or I have to talk in front of a bunch of people. Scans don't get me very anxious because of the amount of radiation involved with each of them but I am very anxious for Jordon to have this scan tomorrow. We would ask that you pray as soon as you read this message and every time you think of it throughout Tuesday. We ask that you pray that we will accept the results. Thank you all for the prayers.
The requirements for Jordon to go home were; to have an immune system, no fever for 24 hours, and negative blood cultures for two days. Fortunately Jordon's blood cultures were always negative. The doctors said that Jordon body was reacting to a bacteria but not in the blood. They assumed he had bacteria in the mouth or on a wound on the body (although they could not prove it through cultures). But Jordon ran a fever the first couple of days of being admitted and was neutropenic for 4 days (through Thursday). Friday morning Jordon woke up with an A.N.C of 2900! This means we were going home. Kids don't generally go from essentially no A.N.C. to 2900 (almost normal) in one day, but Jordon does.
When we got home Jordon wanted to go to the homecoming game. Since his immune system was good and he had been out of the social scene for a while we pulled up just after the game started. The weather just over 70 degrees so it was beautiful.
Since being home Jordon has felt really good. He has been a little tired but has managed to stay active and eat well.
This week will bring an important scan and the start of another round of chemo. The scan tomorrow (Tuesday) will determine whether or not Jordon is in remission. Our pray is that if it is the Lord's timing it will show that the tumor is completely gone and Jordon has no cancer in his body. If the cancer is gone tomorrow Jordon will continue on maintenance chemo for 6-9 months. I have to say I am nervous...nervous like I have a big test tomorrow or I have to talk in front of a bunch of people. Scans don't get me very anxious because of the amount of radiation involved with each of them but I am very anxious for Jordon to have this scan tomorrow. We would ask that you pray as soon as you read this message and every time you think of it throughout Tuesday. We ask that you pray that we will accept the results. Thank you all for the prayers.
No comments:
Post a Comment