Post Christmas Check Up Thursday, Dec 26 and more...

First things first, we had a wonderful Christmas. Eric woke the whole family up at 7:11am. He said he let us sleep in for 11 minutes! Granny Joan, Uncle Dave, Auntie Jenny and Uncle Jay all came for brunch mid morning. Then they headed out to cook the turkey while we got to nap, or for Eric, build Lego, and Joel, play video games. Then we headed over to Granny's for turkey dinner and figgy pudding. Granny pours rum all over the figgy pudding, lights it on fire and we all sing We Wish you a Merry Christmas. Joel said "do families really do this? and I said "well yours does!"

On Boxing Day Eric and I trekked into the hospital. Traffic was amazing; we left late and arrived early. Neither of us wanted to come, but this was the appointment he was given because there was no room in the clinic for him on Friday. Turns out it was a good thing we came in, since his hemoglobin was down to 77. He typically gets headaches at 80 and didn't have one yet but I'm sure it was right around the corner. His platelets were also down to 20. He didn't necessarily need platelets, but the doctor didn't think it would be safe to let it go until his next appointment, which was planned for Tuesday. Unfortunately 4 hours into the appointment, neither of these blood products had even been ordered! I was near tears from frustration. Once they were finally ordered, our nurse did her best to get things moving smoothly and get us out as quickly as possible, but we didn't get home until 7:30pm. During our very long day at the hospital, we vowed to have a Boxing Day do over the following day. For me that means, pjs all day, lots of tea/coffee, couch time, playing with Christmas presents, etc. So that is what we did! Though I woke up in the morning with a cough and Eric with a runny nose, we both stayed in our pjs all day and had a wonderfully relaxing day. 

Saturday morning (today) Chuck and Eric were both awake before me. I woke up to Chuck telling me Eric had a fever. Fever means we call the oncologist on call and they tell us to come to the ER, which is exactly what happened this morning. Since I already had an over night bag packed, I was able to sneak a shower in before we left, and Joel woke up so we got to say bye to him. We arrived at the ER at about 10:15am and it was standing room only. Luckily the oncologist let them know to expect us and we were ushered right into a room. The turkey has not registered a "true" fever again since arriving at the hospital, but his temp is elevated and he clearly feels like poop. He even vomited at one point today. They did his port access and the ER nurse did very well, a little slow but got it first try. Did blood work and additional blood for cultures (looking for a bacterial infection), a nose swab and cheek swab, and started running some antibiotics as a precaution. The results of the swabs came back and Eric actually has TWO viruses: RSV and HMPV. I hadn't heard of the second one before, but the ER doctor said they're both going around right now. They are both upper respiratory viruses and don't generally require treatment. However, for Eric a fever generally means a minimum 72 hour admit. The oncology protocol is to give IV antibiotics for 48 hours while waiting to see if the cultures grow anything, even though the viruses are most likely the cause of the fever. Therefore, Eric has been admitted to hospital. It also means that we are on "contact precautions," basically isolation. We can't use any communal amenities - playroom, kettle, coffee, family lounge, laundry, etc. 

We were admitted to a room on the oncology floor around 2:30pm and are resting comfortably. We are lucky enough to have a microwave in our room for this visit which does make things a little easier. Eric is also receiving a platelet transfusion, since his platelets were low again today despite the transfusion only 2 days ago. This is not how we wanted to spend this week, but I guess we should be happy that we managed to stay out of the hospital over Christmas, since that was really my only goal for the holidays. 

Stay tuned for an update about our discharge, hopefully soon!