Friday 19th February 2010

I've had a few people asking what happened to Thursday's blog? Well there were 2 reasons for not posting an entry. The first was that we needed to recharge the wireless modem on the laptop in the hospital and Murray needed to sort something out with it so he took it home. I therefore didn't have the laptop to do a new posting when I sat down that night. The other reason is that I may need to cut back to every few days depending on what's going on. So don't stress if I skip a day here and there. It just means nothing has really happened so not much to report - that's a good thing!

So what's been happening. Yesterday (Thursday 18th) Luke had a good day. He had a day off from any chemo and a few close friends came in to visit.
Today has been a bit of a different story. Luke has been feeling extremely lightheaded. His blood pressure at 10.30 this morning was 120/20 sat down. The nurse came back in after 20 minutes and said the doctor wanted a reading with him standing up it was 70/30 and he felt like he was going to black out. The doctor has put him back on the drip to push some fluids through him. It is now 8.30pm as I type this and he is onto his 2nd bag of fluids. His blood pressure this afternoon sat down was
120/43. They have also put some sexy white stockings (compression socks) on Luke's legs to assist blood flow and stop any clotting.

Generally his blood sugar levels have settled a bit. They are still low in the morning but he is sitting around 8 in the evening.
He had his "bee sting" chemo today and has another day off treatment tomorrow.

Blood levels are:
18/2 Haemaglobin 87 / White Cell Count 0.8 / Platelets 112 / Neutrophils 0.22
19/2 Haemaglobin 88 / White Cell Count 0.9 / Platelets 140 / Neutrophils 0.26

Murray and I are hoping to speak to Luke's doctor tomorrow morning. We have lot's of questions for her. We had hoped to see her this morning but she didn't come in today. Somehow when she came in on Tuesday & Wednesday for her quick 5 minute visit, Murray or I had slipped out to either cook Luke a snack or go for a walk or something. She chatted to Luke on both occasions and said that after this 28 day induction chemo finishing around 1 March we would be going home for 1 - 1.5 weeks to let Luke's cells do their own thing - before Luke would have a bone marrow biopsy. She also said she had referred his case up to Westmead Hospital (originally I thought it was Royal North Shore) and that a stem cell transplant would happen at some stage!
Luke also heard this afternoon from the haematology co-ordinator that he has an appointment at Westmead Hospital on the 25th March. Again Murray was out of the room - we have such good timing!! So we have no idea if this is a hello kind of meeting or if something is happening with the stem cell at this time. Amy's results won't be back till next week sometime.
I know Luke is the patient and the doctor has every right to talk to him however you would think that as he is still under 18 they would wait for a parent to be present before giving him this sort of information.
So we really have no idea what is going on and hope to have some more information to share tomorrow.