Ryan is doing better, his fever is gone, and he looks great; however, the results from his lab cultures came back and indicated that he has a staph infection in his blood. This means that he'll have to stay at COH for approximately 10 days for treatment to completely eradicate it. Needless to say, he is definitely not happy about being an in-patient.
He refuses to eat the cafeteria food, too, because he connects it psychologically with how nauseous and awful he felt post transplant. Yesterday I ordered him a corndog, thinking that he'd eat that, however, when it arrived, he sniffed it and waved it away. He used to sniff his food a lot after the hard chemo he received last year and also after his transplant. He hasn't done that in a long time and eats pretty much everything at home. Thank goodness for the bistro downstairs! (and thank you, Topanga Family for the Sodexo cards, they are gonna will definitely be put to good use feeding Ryan because he WILL eat food from the Bistro, lol)
We aren't sure how or why he got the blood infection, but one of the nurses told Jason today that sometimes that's a Hickman catheter's way of saying it's time for it to be removed. Ryan has had his Hickman catheter in place since early November, just before he had his transplant. Usually, the Hickman is removed approximately 100 days following transplant, but we decided along with Ryan's doctor to leave his catheter in place until just before summer. The main reason is because he is still a little guy and removing the catheter means that he will have to have his vein accessed by a needle every time he goes to COH for follow-up appointments and blood work. Until very recently, that meant every week. We were going to have it removed in time for summer so he could go swimming. It looks like it might be removed sooner. We should have more information about this after tomorrow.
In the meantime, I'm at home, recovering from my ankle surgery which took place this morning. It was a relatively simple procedure despite having to be placed under i.v. anesthesia. I did have to leave the out-patient surgery center on crutches, though. I couldn't walk unassisted, and probably won't be able to for another day or two. I graduated to using just one crutch late this evening.
My doctor said I should be able to drive by tomorrow, and so I will be driving to COH to take more clean clothes to Jason & Ryan, and probably more toys to keep Ryan busy now that he'll be there a little longer than expected. I probably won't spend the night there until Saturday, so that my foot will have a chance to heal a bit more. I also want to make sure that my cold is gone. I am feeling a lot better this evening in terms of my cold. The ear infection symptoms seem to be gone for the most part. Funny how the body adjusts on it's own sometimes.
Well, I'm pretty tired, so I'm gonna hit the sack. I will update again tomorrow.
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