Updates

May 2004 May 3  Thought I would write a quick update....Jacob's counts were checked at the Sudbury hospital on Sunday and he is neutropenic again...his neutropolys were at 0.4 which means that his scheduled Chemo for Tuesday has been postponed until Thursday....hey we are not complaining...more time at home!  We are scheduled for more bloodwork tomorrow and hopefully his counts are on the way up... May 4-Jacob woke up this morning with a runny nose and was running a low grade fever when he was checked at the cancer center this morning.  Because of his fever they had to do a blood culture with his bloodwork which required finding a vein.....3 pokes later Jacob is covered in sweat and is screaming at the top of his lungs and they finally find a vein in his foot...the vein only holds out for enough blood to do the blood culture and they have to do a finger poke after that for his counts.  Jacobs counts come back high...his counts have more then tripled since Sunday..his total white blood cell count is 8.3 and his neutropolys are at 6.4 which shows that he is fighting an infection.  A call is made to CHEO to find out what the plan is from here....it is decided that because Jacob only has a low grade fever and cold, and his counts are high, that they will go ahead with the 7th cycle of Chemo on Thursday......we finish our packing and get ready for the trip to Ottawa tomorrow..... May 17 I am not sure were to begin this update..we have been in Ottawa a lot longer than anticipated, we just returned home last night from what turned out to be a week and a half stay at the Ronald McDonald House.  We arrived in Ottawa as planned on May 5 and Jacob's pre-admission blood work was done via his port and he began hydrating with the IV fluids on Thursday morning (May 6). Because his counts were so high on Tuesday we all assumed his Chemo would be a go....boy were we wrong...his neutroploys had dropped to 0.5 and the Chemo was cancelled.  Jacob's port was disconnected and we were sent back to the Ronald McDonald House until Monday.

Well....we are in Ottawa for the weekend and the weather is perfect...we are not in the hospital...so we decide to take in some of the outside festivities.  We luck out and the Tulip Festival has just started.  The boys have an amazing time (there is water, dirt, and lots of room to run!) and the flowers are gorgeous.  This takes our mind off the fact that Jacob's little body is starting to have a hard time bouncing back after his treatments....and that we could be in Ottawa for a week or more.

We try again on Monday (May 10) and Jacobs counts come back low..his neutroploys are only at 0.61 and we are told to come back on Wednesday.  By this point we are getting frustrated and pray for a go on Wednesday.  Our prayers are answered and Jacob's bloodwork comes back good on Wednesday morning (netropolys are at 2.47) and Jacob's port is accessed and his hydration is started again.  4 North is having a bed crisis and we don't get onto the floor until 4pm which was fine with Jacob as he had the playroom on the MDU almost entirely to himself for the afternoon!!  Jacob's first day of Chemo is finished by 6pm and he starts to vomit by bedtime.  He is given some medication to help with the nausea...but it does not work and he wakes at 5am screaming and is sick twice more.  He gets some gravol at this point and it knocks him out for the rest of the morning.  By supper time he is vomiting again and his nurse decides to try a steroid to help with the nausea...this seems to do the trick and Jacob is asleep by 6:45pm...Jacob wakes early again on day three and is vomitting again....with more medication this seems to subside by the afternoon and we decide to leave his port accessed just in case and try the night at the Ronald McDonald House on an overnight pass.

Jacob in the MDU at Cheo just after he had his port accessed.

Jacob is up for two hours crying in the middle of the night, but keeps a little breakfast down and we are hopeful that we will make it home on the noon flight.  I head back to the hospital at 8:45am to get Jacob's port de-accessed and Mike and Nana stay behind to clean the rooms.  We get to the 4th floor and Jacob starts to gag...I take a seat in our room and Jacob starts to throw up again.  Jacob is hooked back up to the IV for fluids and more steroids are added to help combat the nausea.  He is sick a couple more times and I call Mike for backup.  Jacob screams for most of the day and Mike and I are almost in tears trying to figure out what is wrong....by 4pm he seems to be a little more comfortable and we are discharged back to the Ronald McDonald house for the night. Jacob has a better night and we decide to head home.  Mike, Joshua and Nana head out at 10:30am and Jacob and I will catch the 5pm flight home.  Jacob sleeps only 15mins between 6am and 5pm when we board the plane and he sleeps for the hour we are in the air (I thank god).  Mike is already home and picks us up at the airport (a nice surprise) and we head home.  Jacob has a rough night and we are up until 4am with him screaming at the top of his lungs...we administer all the medications that we have on hand and hope for the best.  Things are still touch and go today and we are due for our next appointment at the Cancer Center tomorrow to hopefully get some answers as to what is making Jacob so sick.

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