Monday 15th February 2010

Luke is getting really used to the disjointed sleep. He got woken up at 2.30am with the nurse wanting to check Luke's blood sugar level. It was 3 which is very low. Should be I believe between 5-7. So the nurse asked him to have a cup of juice or choc or lollies. I ended up grabbing about 5 jelly beans for him. Not quite what you expect to eat at 2.30 in the morning. The gang at the pharmacy where Luke works will get a laugh at this as he was always buying the pharmacy jelly beans!!
They tested his blood sugar again at 11am and it was 5.9 - so that was good. It normally climbs by the end of the day so we'll see how it goes.

He had a day off from chemo today but had to go and have a chest x-ray. He has this once a week. We had a visit from the dietician today and we went through a long list of questions with her about what he can and can't eat when he is neutropenic. He has been neutropenic for 6 days now - we know he is neutropenic when his neutrophil level drops below .50 - This means he is more prone to pick up infections from other people and really needs to stay within the limits of what he can/can't eat to avoid picking up salmonella poisoning.

His levels today were:
Haemaglobin 80 /White Cell Count 0.8 / Platelets 58 / Neutrophils 0.05

Murray and I went for a meeting at Lake Tuggeranong College today to discuss the options available for Luke. They were very understanding and informative and said they would do whatever they could for Luke. We have asked for his individual teachers to contact us with options of being able to do his work online at times when he will be unable to attend college (at this point we have no idea how often this will be) - so we will wait and see what happens.

Luke also had a visit from the physio. They suggested Luke visit the gym downstairs (if he ventures out of the acute care ward while he is neutropenic he needs to wear a mask) so he wasn't too keen on the idea. There is an exercise bike on the ward so we may have to get him on that. She suggested that he needs to get up and walking around and exercising. He must have listened to her because when Murray and I came back from the college he had managed to walk down to the kitchen at the other end of the main ward (with his mask on) to cook himself a wokka(noodle) box in the microwave. It's amazing how food can motivate you to do something!!