Day 157 - Weekend routine

     Another weekend is almost in the books, but this one included another trip to the ER due to fever.  Friday night around 8:00 Evan was wrapping up some PT work with Cristy and he mentioned he wasn't feeling well.  I asked if he was sick and he said no, but something just didn't feel right.  Initially I thought it was post-steroid effects on his body, but decided to check him out.  He felt warm to the touch.  Out of caution I decided to take his temp and confirmed that he was running a fever of 101.  We spoke with the on-call doctor and she asked us to bring him in, but said she could be convinced to wait out the fever a bit longer.  I told her it was fine and we'd bring him in.

Heart rate and breathing were elevated.

     By the time Cristy and Evan arrived to the ER his fever had already dropped to 99.  As per protocol they checked out his vitals, drew blood and prepared an IV drip of Zosyn.  Because his counts dropped quite a bit since Thursday they wanted to be very thorough with his diagnosis.  Interestingly his HR was high despite the lowering temp and his blood pressure was fairly low.  The doctors decided to keep him for the night for observation.  All of the counts in his blood that we monitor were low, particularly the Hemoglobin.  I mention it because the general thought was that his heart rate was up in order to adequately supply oxygen to his body since his Hemoglobin was down.
     During the night his blood pressure returned to an acceptable level, but his HR was still in the 140s.  The cultures didn't show any signs of infection so the medical team gave Evan one more quick once over and sent Cristy and Evan on their way at 10:00 on Saturday.  Cristy put me on the speaker phone with the NP that day and I got a chance to ask some questions.  The NP felt we'd be better off at home, especially since we're scheduled to be back in Monday morning anyway.  The doctors have suggested the very strong possibility of a blood transfusion.  They want to bump his numbers up ahead of the chemo and procedures scheduled for tomorrow.

Eating breakfast prior to discharge.

     After being released from the hospital Cristy took Evan to a CURE event at the new Menchie's in our area.  It was their opening weekend and they had an event from 11 - 1 where people could come and get some free yogurt.  As Cristy found out the daughter of the owner was a cancer survivor herself.  They saw Evan and took the time to talk to him and Cristy for a bit.  It was a good treat for him considering he had to spend another night in the hospital.

Enjoying some Menchie's.

     I'm anxious to see his counts tomorrow since I'm pretty confident they'll be down even more.  The next couple of weeks include daily chemo shots, oral chemo medications and a few IV based infusions.  We've already tried to prepare Evan that he's going to feel pretty bad following some of these sessions.  He's been tough throughout and I'm hopeful that he'll power through this like he has with the previous phases.