Dizzy Izzy No More
After Josiah had his spell with equilibrium problems on Friday night the care team at the hospital has monitored him pretty closely. I'm thrilled to report there has been no symptom recurrence and the doctors are no longer worried that something serious was going on.
Though he still has bouts with nausea, his energy level and infectious smile have been consistently encouraging. Today during the doctor's visit Josiah took advantage of his temporary freedom from IV tubes by running back and forth across his room at least 10 times. All the adults were exhausted.
ANC Status and Further Explanation
After the nurse told me Josiah's ANC count had dropped to 8 this morning, I (Aaron here) was pretty bummed. Things just weren't adding up for me. Last Monday his ANC was only 43 away from the magic number of 200 to be released from the hospital. Now 6 days later he's at his lowest level yet. My first thought was "Is he ever going to be able to leave here?" Rather than ask the doctor such a desperate question, I asked "what is suppressing his ANC? Is it chemo, cancer effects, effects of the now-gone flu?"
The doctors explanation was rather insightful in a number of ways
- ANC suppression is a product of the chemo cocktails
- The chemo primarily attacks four of the fastest cell growth areas of the body
- Hair
- Mouth (we do 'mouth care' 3 times a day to protect against this one)
- Cancer cells
- Bone Marrow (there is no protection)
- The bone marrow is where the good cells are produced and the chemo has effectively turned off the factory
- 80% of kids in the final stages of active chemo (where Josiah's at) are admitted to the hospital because their immune systems have become so compromised
- The doctor said the pattern is so common that he can reasonably estimate when Josiah will be released: June 22nd is his educated guess based on the current treatment plan
- The current treatment plan is:
- Tomorrow 6/16 Josiah should receive his LAST active phase chemo treatment
- Approximately 2 week after that (~June 30th) his ANC should be recovered enough to begin the less aggressive maintenance phase of treatment which starts with bi-weekly treatments
"Is he ever going to be able to leave here?" God willing it looks like he's about a week away. Sarah and I were grateful to have information and to know that the Dr. was not concerned with how things were progressing
Please pray for patient, abiding, endurance for our family. Though we're being loved by so many right now, the instability is wearisome. Pray for Mary and Stella as they deal with the instability of staying with many different people.
