Another blood draw

We went in yesterday for another blood draw to check on Callum's counts. He's getting so old and mature about all of this these days! This was the first time he's told me I could sit in the chair nearby and not hold him in my lap, while they access him. In the first picture he's puffing out his chest and squeezing his eyes (while holding his breath), when she poked him. He exclaimed "That didn't even hurt at all!" And proceeded to go back to his game playing while she drew blood. LOL

His ANC was 551 yesterday - so he's technically no longer neutropenic (barely tho, the cut off for us is 500) and will return to school on Monday. His counts aren't high enough to resume his home chemo however (he needs to hit 750 or higher to resume), so we'll be back again on Monday to do another blood draw.....

Labwork time

We like these quicky visits where we come in, draw labs, and leave! Hopefully numbers are back up enough for us to restart chemo tonight....we shall see. At least Callum is looking, and feeling, a whole lot better! :)

So happy to be home!

The Drs came in this morning asking if we wanted to go home and Callum said "Nah" :) They laughed and turned to me and asked "How about you Mom?"

I hadn't mentioned to Callum that his Grandpa Ito was here (we flew Paul in on Monday to help with Logan) since we couldn't have any visitors and I knew it would just upset him. But, it was the perfect thing to mention to him as I was packing up our room and getting ready for our discharge. Suddenly, the kid who was quite content to hang out with Mama in a hospital room forever, was extremely excited to leave and go home, so that he could see his Grandpa. :)

They've been playing games all afternoon....Which has been so nice since I was able to head to my bedroom and sneak in a much needed nap!

So glad we are back home. Phew!

I'm free, I'm free, I'm free!

The Drs allowed us to disconnect Callum from his IV pole today, since he's been doing so well and clearly had a lot of bundled up energy. Once they disconnected him, he literally started running in circles around the room, and bouncing up and down on the bed, and climbing up onto my back and jumping head first into the couch - all while yelling "I'm free, I'm free, I'm free!"

To say he was extremely happy to be disconnected is probably an understatement. ;-)

They also stopped his antibiotics today, in preparation for a discharge tomorrow. His counts are still low, but have been steadily climbing these past few days. So the progress is promising, and his regained energy and attitude help the Drs feel comfortable sending us home this weekend. Crossing our fingers and toes that we'll be outta here mañana!

Surprise visit!

Last night, Jon stopped by for a quick visit, while on his way home, to surprise little Callum. Callum was sooooo excited and thrilled to see Jon (and share his latest game that he's been trying to conquer while we've been here).

After Jon left, Callum said to me "I really miss Daddy." This particular visit has been harder on him than any of the previous ones - in the past it hasn't seemed to phase him that we've been gone from home so long and that he hasn't seen Logan or Jon. But this visit it's definitely hit him a lot harder - and he's had several (crying) moments where he's begged me to go home - that he wants to see his Daddy and brother and doesn't want to be here. I guess it's because he's older and more aware now of what he's missing back home. It sure does make these stays harder on the both of us. :(

My little monster

The Drs want to encourage Callum to get up and move around so there isn't as much crud sitting in his lungs. But, being on isolation in a hospital room means we don't have many places for him to move around to! Yesterday though, he started making a few trips to the other side of the room, to the couch (my bed), to hang out with me - and torment me with his devilishly good looks (due to boredom no doubt). ;-)

The fevers came back

I just realized I haven't blogged in a number of days. But I guess I have a good excuse. Just when things were looking a little better after Easter Sunday, Callum developed a super nasty cough Monday evening which kept him (and I) up all night. His coughing fits were really rough - causing him to choke and gag because his body was coughing so violently. He was miserable, the poor guy.

The crappiness of this bug continued on Tuesday when the fevers returned, and with a vengeance! He spiked up to nearly 104, which had the nurses rushing around putting in orders for more Tylenol. We ran some more blood cultures (standard when fevers hit), got some cough syrup and Tylenol in him, and did a chest X-ray. The flu can lead to complications like bacterial infections in the lungs, and given the fevers had returned, we needed to be sure there wasn't a secondary infection at play. Luckily, his lungs were clear, so that seemed to be a bit of good news in all of the chaos.

I really wanted to make sure he slept better that night, given he had only had small pockets of 20 minutes here and there the night before, to rest. We decided to also try giving him an albuterol treatment before bedtime - not because they could hear any wheezing in his lungs but we figured why not. And if it could help him stop spasm'ing long enough to calm down and rest, then by all means we were going to try it!

So I'm not sure if it was the cough syrup (that I had finally convinced the Drs to allow), the cough drops that I was making him suck on, the fluids and Tylenol, or the albuterol (probably a combo if it all), but he was finally able to settle down enough that he slept a bit better that night. He was still waking up in coughing fits but they were coming on every couple of hours instead of every few minutes.

Because of how rough Tuesday was, we took it super lazy and quiet on Wednesday. His cough remained but was a lot better. And he started to get a bit of his appetite back.

Yesterday and now today, have been even better still. He woke me up this morning because he had hopped out of bed, trying to move his pole with him to get to the window so he could see if the sun was up yet (it wasn't). He's been up and moving around a bunch more today which pleases everyone to see. Hopefully, the worst is now behind us!