Waiting for a CD what count???

7:44:00 PM Atticus Army 5 Comments

Hey army,

Well, it has been a pretty interesting week.  If it were to have gone by the book, it should have been a fairly calm week.  As you remember, we came in for our first neutropenic (low white blood cell) fever on Friday.  I was so happy that we were able to catch the fever on its way up because Atticus responded so quickly to the antibiotics, and meds and by Sunday night we were fever free!!! So, from that point, we were just playing the waiting game for his ANC to come up so that he could head home before his next round of chemo.



Unfortunately for us, our little army man doesn't read the book, maybe we should work on that.  Nevertheless,  Atticus has developed a very interesting problem at night.  The first few nights we were here after being admitted on Friday, we noticed that for some odd reason at night time Atticus's SPO2 (oxygen concentration in his blood) kept falling down to around 85%.  Now normally we should be in the upper 90's or close to 100%.  So we had to start putting him on oxygen at night time to make sure his whole body was getting sufficient oxygen.

I at first was just great with it.  Being in Vet school has afforded me somewhat of a knowledge base to understand in part what it could be.  So I was thinking, Well, Huh, He is anemic (low red blood cells) which would make sense as to why he couldn't stay oxygenated very well as the red blood cells are responsible for delivering oxygen to the body.  So low and behold he received his blood transfusion on Saturday.  And, I was like GREAT, all is right in the world, and he should do better tonight.  Of course, that didn't happen, and as the nights have gone on he continues to need the oxygen.

Many of the doctors aren't entirely sure why this is happening.  We have done labs on a daily basis, we even did a chest X-ray, and both have no indication as to why it is all of the sudden happening.  One of the doctors said it could be some form of mild sleep apnea, but that doesn't' usually just start out of nowhere.  So long story short Atticus will have to have a sleep study done here in the coming weeks, and we will likely have to be sent home with oxygen stuff to put on him at night.



I had a good chuckle to myself earlier this afternoon.  We now have an entire drawer for all of the things to take care of his Hickman Catheter, We have another drawer for all of his supplies to take care of his feeding tube, a cupboard full of food, and now we have to get another place for all of the oxygen things, along with what ever canister we have to cart around!  I feel like I may be able to open a home care clinic if this keeps up! 

In spite of all of this, Atticus has remained true to character.  We now have 6 little foot prints each representing 1 mile that Atticus has walked around the cancer care floor.  He reminds me a lot of my self not being content sitting, and always wanting to accomplish something.  This is something that my beautiful bride can attest to.  Although, at times I think it may drive her a little crazy.  But he really is doing just phenomenal, and we couldn't be happier with his progress, and especially his tenacious attitude.





As the title implies the majority of this week we have just been waiting for his ANC to start to increase.  As you may or may not recall, we have been having to give Atticus a shot in the leg each morning and let me tell you it is not the funnest thing to do!  But, the entire point is so that we can stimulate his bone marrow to kick out what are termed hematopoietic stem cells.  Meaning cells, and in our case white blood cells, to get booted from the bone marrow a little bit earlier than they normally would have.  And, specifically, they are looking for a white blood cell called a CD-34.  To what end you might ask,? well, they will harvest these cells right now and freeze them so that when we are about half way done with our chemotherapy treatment and we switch to some even more potent drugs they will be able to transfuse white blood cells in efforts to keep him healthy.

It is pretty amazing what modern medicine can do, and we are so so happy to be in a facility where these treatment options are available.  Atticus is set to go to surgery tomorrow (Thursday) to get the line placed for this process to be accomplished.  It takes quite a few hours once the harvesting begins, as they have a specialized machine that separates out only the cells that they can use, and allows the rest of the cells in the blood to continue back into the body.  It is pretty crazy.  As not fun as this is coming from a parents stand point, my inner medical student keeps shining through finding all of this quite fascinating.  I have become quite religious about obtaining all lab results, and I have started charting blood values in efforts to be able to see some trends so that in future cycles we might be able to catch some problems early.  It's a sickness I know, but I am now known as the "vet student" and all of the doctors have been really great to talk about things with me and there have even been a few jokes, saying that I mine as well put a uniform on!

Faculty again!!! (inside joke for my vet class)

 Today (Wednesday) has been quite the traumatic day for Atticus.   After our blood and platelet transfusions on Saturday, his numbers naturally jumped.  However, over the last few days, they have been falling again and he had to receive another platelet transfusion this afternoon.  All of this on the day that he has been super fussy.  He hasn't slept very well the last few nights as he HATES the nasal oxygen thing (canula) he has to wear.  It keeps falling off, his oxygen levels will fall, an alarm will go off, and we have to put it on.  He understandable is very upset being woken up by shoving something in his nose!  We do finally get it in, he falls asleep, and being restless, he knocks it out an hour or two later, and we do the same song and dance again!  Can be quite a frustration for this little guy, and we feel so bad as he really needs his rest.

But today was one of those days, super tires, couldn't take a nap with his nasal cannula in, had to get the transfusion, and on top of all of this he got this random sneezing fit that ended in his NG (nasogastric, or feeding) tube being pulled out! This tube getting put in the first time was very horrible to watch, so we had been praying that we NEVER had to do it again.. Well as I said, Atticus doesn't like to read the book,  so Why not just throw it on top of the pile for the day! HAHA  Luckily, it wasn't as bad this time as the first time and we are now finally settling down for the day hoping the night goes well for surgery tomorrow morning. 

Oh AND, Atticus was snuggling with Emmie this morning and when he sat up there was a whole pile of hair on Emmie's lap!!!! So sad we have to put our little guy through this.  So I think Atticus and I will be sporting the bald look for a bit.