An extra night 'out'

Shayla is in the hospital today. It is 2:21 a.m. and I have just returned home to try to get some sleep before work tomorrow morning. Jase is with Shayla now, but I will get back to that....

At the regular clinic visit yesterday, now, her blood count was low (Hematocrit was 7.9) and she was neutropenic. She also had a low fever of 99.2. Not too problematic for you or I, but for one whose immune system is suppressed, it is an early warning sign...

The Number Rises
As the day went on, Shayla dealt with a persistent headache and lack of appetite. By 8 p.m. she had a fever of 100.4, just barely high enough to warrant concern. She was chilled and shivering. A warm bath and tucking in the covers of her many quilts on her bed, she tried to sleep. However, by 9:45 she was feeling worse. The thermometer told us to get moving. At that time, her temperature ready 103.4! Two Tylenol and a phone call to the on-call clinic and we were on our way to the ER per Dr. Hansen's instructions.

The ER (Or Petrie dish...)
We arrived at the ER about 10:15, give or take a few minutes, and waited to be moved up to the Pediatrics Annex where Shayla is usually treated for her chemo. That would have been too simple! Instead, we waited in an ER suite for the pharmacy to get the antibiotics ready and start her on fluids. At midnight I asked if we could be moved upstairs since she was going to be admitted anyway, and they were already on the same track, so no convincing was necessary. Now, in all fairness, after having discussed the matter with Dr. Hansen I understand why he sent us to the ER and not directly to the annex: Shayla's fever was pretty high for a neutropenic patient, lots of 'red flags', so if she was going to 'crash', it was better that she be in the ER where they have everything at their grasp for quick response. The odd thing was (okay, not odd since she received a priesthood blessing earlier), that when we got to the ER, Shayla had no fever at all! In 20 minutes time, the fever had come down to normal. That said, it was not going to be enough for the docs to let us leave, and frankly, Shayla wasn't in any condition to put up a fuss, she was already pretty wiped out. I said Petrie Dish in the title of the paragraph...it's a little unsettling when in the rooms all around you can hear little children coughing, spewing who-knows-what kinds of germs all over the place!

Fever Free for 36 hours and she can leave the hospital.
That's the deal. That, and the blood culture has to come back negative. In the meantime, Shayla will be getting another blood transfusion because her platelets are very low-probably a cause of the headaches and insomnia the past few days! She actually could have received the transfusion this morning at clinic, but she wasn't going to have anything to do with staying there up to 6 hours when she didn't need to. Okay, maybe she needed to. She has learned her lesson. Should the circumstance present itself again, I think Shayla will choose the transfusion early rather than wait until later.

What hurts?
As I was getting Shayla settled in her room on the peds annex, she complained of a pain in her thumb, yep, the thumb. She told me it hurts on the pad of the thumb, an achy, all-over kind of pain. Looking at it, there is a little darker spot in the center of where she indicates the pain is (the fingerprint part), but nothing that 'jumps out' at you at first glance. No idea what it is and the doc said we should keep an eye on it. Who knows?!

A Wish is Forming...
Shayla has not made a definite determination yet, but the options are getting narrowed down a bit. We are looking into a Dude Ranch resort near Sea World so she can ride horses and play with the dolphins. We will keep all posted.

A Song of Love
One last thing before I hit the sack. Songs of Love have produced a song just for Shayla! It makes her smile every time she listens to it. I will post the link so you can hear and enjoy it too.

Thank you all for your prayers! Thank you especially to Tom M. and Andy F. who came when we needed them to administer to Shayla. And finally, I thank Jase for determining just how much I needed him to be with us on this and got off work early to be with Shayla so one of us would be here for the rest of the kids in the morning. I love you Jase, more deeply every minute we walk together.