Thursday 8th April 2010

We all had a fabulous Easter and did manage to have a few lazy days with some sleep ins and no hospital visits. Murray went to golf on Good Friday, then we all went over to Murray's sisters place for a family get together for lunch. I went to a wedding on Saturday for one of my work colleagues, Bridget, she looked gorgeous and it was lovely to have a night out.
However Luke hit a speed bump on Monday and ended up going into hospital. His temperature over Saturday and Sunday was in the high 37's and we knew that if he got to 38 degrees for more than half and hour he'd need to go into hospital. He was also really nauseous and not eating a great deal. I was catching up with some old friends from Qantas at lunchtime on Monday when Amy called around 3.30pm and said they were on their way to hospital. They put him on antibiotics straight away.

Getting an infection was always a possibility and according the the nurses they were surprised they hadn't seen us earlier. We thought he'd be in overnight but as it turns out he's still there now. He had a chest x-ray that showed a bit of shadowing in one of his lungs. Dr Dipti couldn't hear anything in his lungs so it sounds as if something was brewing and they caught it in time. He has antibiotics every 4 hours over 4 - 5 days. He was also given 2 x blood transfusions and a multitude of other injections to get his blood levels up. So the poor thing was attacked with all sorts on Tuesday/Wednesday and not sleeping very well with all the interruptions through the night. We have been leaving him at about 10.30pm as he seems to cope okay by himself overnight and as he says there is no point two of us not getting sleep.

The doctor saw him Wednesday morning and said that chemo would be put on hold till they controlled his infection and got the neutrophils up. It sounds as if they will start chemo tomorrow as his blood levels have picked up dramatically today and he is feeling and looking much better. So he will be in hospital till at least Saturday. At least his nausea has settled and he was eating a bit more normally today.

For anyone who would like to know here are his blood levels for the past days.

Haemaglobin - 3 Apr - 77 / 4 Apr - 77 / 5 Apr - 78 / 6 Apr - 72 / 7 Apr - 92 / 8 Apr - 90
White Cell Count - 3rd - 0.6 / 4th - 0.9 / 5th - 1.0 / 6th - 1.1 / 7th - 2.0 / 8th - 5.0
Platelets - 3rd - 145 / 4th - 178 / 5th - 226 / 6th - 216 / 7th - 251 / 8th - 259
Neutrophils - 3rd - 0.02 / 4th - 0.02 / 5th - 0.03 / 6th - 0.07 / 7th - 0.42 / 8th - 2.07

So as I said he is much better today and we hope to get him home on the weekend in time for Amy's birthday on Sunday.