Double figures (Day +10)

It was another quiet day for Max. The mucositis has taken its toll on his demeanour; he struggled to talk a lot and didn't have a lot of energy for playing with toys or doing puzzles. He had quite a few coughing fits which caused him a lot of distress. Between boughts of coughing he was pretty content to just doze. All that said, his vital signs are good; his temperature has come down (no longer febrile), his blood pressure is good (mean arterial pressure hovering in the 70's) and his pulse not too high (between 100 & 140 bpms). They still haven't determined the source of his fever; nothing has shown up in the blood tests (nothing has grown in the cultures), x-rays (one on Monday and one today - all clear) or ultrasound (done today - no excess fluid anywhere except for, funnily enough, the bladder - lasix to the rescue. They also looked at his liver and kidneys and they appeared in good shape). Given that his temperature has dropped, the current mix of antibiotics and now anti-fungal medication (as of Wednesday) seem to be doing something good. His respiration rate is still high but given his good vital signs we are hopeful that it is not a symptom of something more ominous. We continue to be encouraged by the fact that we were told that Max would be at at his sickest from around Day +7 until is white cell counts began to rise and that what he his currently going through is all par for the course.

We did have some special visitors pop by today. Max was very excited, despite his condition, to see his cousins Griffin and Evie drop by and wave hello (albeit with two glass doors and room between them). It was both a sad and happy reminder of how much of a social animal Max is and how much he loves his family. After all of this is done we are going to have one hell of a celebration to make up for lost time. Max's favourite social worker also dropped by to read a story and Mawa popped in to let Bee and I have dinner together.

 

Thankyous:

• Mawa for the clippers (finally - i have now joined Max in baldness)
• Princess Rainbow (aka Jimmy's cousin Laura) and Chop from Captain Starlight for the Big Ted.

Cheers,

Tim