Marked Improvement

Good morning!

The Nurse Practicioner who's been seeing Kevin the last few days just finished her daily update. She's very pleased with how Kevin's progressed the past 24 hours. She said his fever seems gone (according to temps taken every 4 hrs) and that the infections are no longer growing on the culures taken from his line. She was very helpful with all the questions I had last night. Well, actually Terri (Heather's mom) answered the one about why he went to 24 hour TPN, which is standard protocol when they go in with an infection. First off, they have identified the second infection in the other line; it's a alpha strep strain. She said it's an infection that's often times found in the mouth. The other line as Mike had shared with me last night, is an ecoli infection. She said that within the last 24 hours both have seemed to respond very well to the antibiotics. Now that the second infection has been identified they can consider taking him off of the second antibiotic and keep him on Vancomycen. That's the doctors call though so she couldn't say for sure. Next, they all doubt his HGB was really at 6.5, but are sure it was low. She said it jumped up past 10 quicker then possible after a transfusion if it were really 6.5. Any time you see critical next to your childs lab reports, it's not a comforting feeling. This was pretty much what Mike said as well, that they were doubtfull that low of a reading was accurate. Finally, she answered my quesiton about the MRI being so soon from his last round of chemo. She indicated there really is no standard period of time as long as it's over 1 week and less then 4 since his last round. They happened to have an opening, and figured they'd get that part of the protocol over with sooner then later. However, as I wrote yesterday his HGB was too low and he wasn't feeling well. He's feling excellent thi s morning though. The Nurse Pacticioner (I thin Litza was her name) said he looks great! She said this is the marked improvement she's been waiting for with him. He was cracking jokes during the entire exam. He's watching Ben 10 Alien Force now, and even contemplating having something to eat. I wasn't here when he was feeling pretty bad, but Litza and Mike both said he was feeling pretty crummy. She said now that he's looking this well, with continued antibiotics we shouldn't have any worries. Now that everything has stabalized, we start the arduous process of waiting for his counts to come up to 500. It will be at least another 3 or 4 days, possibly more. That's ok, all good news this morning!

Take Care,

Eric