Over last 72 hours our focus has been two things. First, Henry's ability to fight the infection he currently has. His fever seems to have subsided, corresponding with the increasing trajectory of his white blood cell count, now at 1280 per cubic millimeter. The 'normal' range is between 6,000 and 17,000. This is the most encouraging news we've had since this visit began. We will continue to monitor these numbers throughout his chemotherapy.
Our focus now is on his Vincristine-induced constipation. A couple of days of constipation is bad enough. Henry hasn't gone for almost 2 weeks. Now that his fever has come down they're willing to try more aggressive measures. To date he's only been taking things from 'above'. I'm writing this during the 6 hour intermission between enema #1 and #2. Each enema requires 3 nurses and myself to hold him down. Afterwards Henry was completely exhausted from struggling, straining and screaming. He rested well for a bit, but we're still waiting for the dam to break, so to speak. If #2 doesn't accomplish its goal, we will continue with more drastic measures tomorrow - manual disimpaction. I'm hoping for a productive night.
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4 comments:
Bryan, here's hoping there are good results soon.
the krause house
Hoping for a productive night!
God bless you. Dad and Joan are here with us in Knoxville for the holiday and we were ready your blog together. Our thoughts are with you all!
Susan Herren
Lets go POOP! Lets go POOP!Lets go POOP!
Here's hoping for a POOPY night! Literally.
t
Maybe this will be helpful in the future. While your boy sits on the toilet to go, jostle his left buttock from the rear 2-3 times per second. The intention is to send vibrations into the rectum to break the static friction and allow for easy evacuation.
GSM
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