Night Four

Tonight is night four as a neutropenic isolated inpatient patient! I have to say, the last three nights in our own room has been very nice. They started Eli on nutrition last night. You know they were NOT going to forget about it again. Every person that walked in the room yesterday started out by saying, “Hi, I am so and so and your TPN is definitely coming tonight.” I thought it was a bit over the top when the cleaning lady said it, but I guess they wanted to make sure I knew that they were all over it this time. 😉 Sure enough, they put him on it and now they are starting to wean him off of the extra fluid they had him on because they have the diarrhea more under control (which my sanity greatly appreciates).

Today Eli was a bit more picky about what he ate, but he definitely still gave it a shot and did a good job over all. Also, his white blood counts rose from 0.0 to 0.1! As the good doctor said today, “Hey, we have a 100% improvement in his WBC!” I told you the doctors around here were optimists. 🙂 Once Eli is no longer neutropenic (meaning his counts have risen high enough), we get to leave this inpatient prison and go back to the Ronald. I can’t wait!

Today was a fun day for Eli as far as activities go. It started out with our New York Angel Barbara stopping by, then Eli had clowns visit, a volunteer that is originally from Sweden came and did crafts with him for a long time, another volunteer came and made “slime” with him from glue/water/liquid starch/food coloring (a very cool and simple project), and some actors stopped by to do a show but got turned down by Eli because it was lunch time. 🙂 There have even been some real “Eli laughs” that we haven’t heard in a very long time!

And as you have all come to expect, I have another “Eli moment” for you. No matter where you go, you always have some nurses that you really like and some that are just “ok”. We rarely get nurses we downright don’t like, thank goodness. Well yesterday we had a nurse that was just a little pushy on making Lacey give Eli his medicine at exactly the time the schedule states, even though we KNOW when he needs to get it and sometimes their schedule is “off”. She also made Lacey wake Eli up from a nap just to get weighed (which obviously they can do any time he’s awake). She seems very nice to me, but she just likes things done her way and usually that comes when Lacey is here at the hospital and I am back at the Ronald with Isaiah. Today we had this same nurse as yesterday and at one point she was unhooking Eli’s platelets (he had a transfusion today) while I was on the phone with Lacey. As I was talking, I heard Eli say, “You know, you’re not mommy’s favorite.” I thought I was going to melt into the phone. In fact, I muttered “Oh, no” as I heard her graciously say, “That’s ok, that happens sometimes.” After she left I warned Lacey that it could be an awkward day because the nurse knows how she really feels now. Lacey laughed and said, “That’s alright, it’s the truth and he put it very nicely.” In fact, the nurse seemed extra nice to Lacey today! Later I asked Eli why he said that and he said, “Well mommy said it yesterday!” Another lesson learned for us that our phone conversations are being tapped by a 3 year old. I have already sent in his application to the NSA since I don’t think Dr. Kushner is going to convince him that he should be a doctor when he becomes “an adult”.

So that’s the update for today. Thanks for your prayers for our little buddy Kieran who relapsed with a tumor on his brain. They moved the surgery up from Friday to today and it was a success! They will follow up with an antibody treatment that gets put into a port that was installed in his head. It has an excellent track record, so everyone is very thankful that everything went so well. Thanks, God!