Day 22 - The Golden Goose

     I decided to hold off on updates yesterday because we really didn't have much of a change in his health status.  Evan was in a fair amount of pain yesterday due to his stomach issues.  We had another CT scan performed late yesterday afternoon and the results showed the poor kid is backed up.  To that end the doctors have tried 3 different laxatives to loosen him up.  One of the side effects of the main chemo drug he's on right now is constipation.
     The pain in his legs and stomach he's been feeling over the past week has caused him to prefer laying in bed.  Today Cristy and I decided that despite his hesitance we were going to try and get him some exercise.  We did a couple laps around the in-patient units, walked to The Zone for a movie and had him do some activities with the physical therapist in the room.  He's very shaky on his feet, but that's likely due to being bedridden for too long.

Working on his motor skills with PT.

     The hospital was showing The Secret Life of Pets earlier and we got a chance to head down to attend.  Unfortunately due to the crowd it was difficult to find a decent seat and the background noise made it hard for him to hear.  After about 30 minutes Evan decided he wanted to come back to the room.  I did manage to snap one photo before we departed.

Catching a movie, next to the popcorn maker.

     Now on to more positive news.  Vitals have been stable for about 5 days now.  He's off the oxygen and monitors, which makes for a better sleeping environment in his room.  I don't think I mentioned the rash he developed in the blog before, but that seems to be clearing up.  Visually the doctors thought it was brought on by the anti-fungal medication fighting the yeast in his blood, but they never did a biopsy so that's not confirmed.

     Evan's blood is showing the type of counts that they would expect from someone that is responding well to the chemotherapy.  What does that mean?  It means the steroids are killing the cancerous cells, the chemo is suppressing the cell division and that his bone marrow is naturally creating healthy white blood cells (neutrophils), hemoglobin and platelets.  Our nurse (Jackie, who's been phenomenal) said were it not for the infection he was brought in for last week they would have released us on those numbers alone.  Speaking of bacteria, lab for the past 24 hours is showing no yeast or bacterial infections.  Fingers crossed that we continue on this path so that we can start the 10 day timer for the whole family to go home.

He's not so sure about pooping being the answer.

     Earlier today he had a minor bowel movement which got the medical staff very excited, but things seemed to have stalled again.  I'm on poop watch tonight so fingers crossed we hit the mother load and finally get that golden egg.