Day 38 - Staying the course ahead of surgery

     Since my last blog entry on Friday afternoon Evan's health has taken another downturn.  His fevers have returned and we're forced to give him Tylenol every four hours.  The symptoms normally start with an increased heart rate and chills, followed by a prompt spike in his temperature.  Doctors tend to think the root cause is the fungi in his lung or the clot in his chest.  He's off his blood thinners for now ahead of the surgery on Monday.

His cheeks typically turn rosy red when he's fighting the fevers.

     In order to help get Evan back to feeling well again they've made some changes to his medications and gave him an IV of immunoglobulin.  The following link, Intravenous Immunoglobulin, explains it much better than I ever could, but the Cliffnotes version is these are synthetic proteins, antibodies, etc. that aid his immune system to fight infections until his body starts reproducing it naturally again.  The steroids that our bodies produce likely stopped while he was on the steroid chemotherapy.
     The fungi infections in his body has also caused his rash and sores to return all over his body.  Despite the fact that he's been on various medications to contain it and his body has an immune system now he's still developing new symptoms.  Below you'll see bumps and spots because of the unknown infection.

Return of the bumps!

     Today the plan is to manage the fevers, get some exercise in and prepare him for his surgery tomorrow.  The doctors prescribed lasix in order to flush his system of fluids.  They noticed he's swollen throughout his body now and want to get him as fit as possible before working on his left lung.  The doctor on staff this morning said fever or not we'll move forward with the surgery tomorrow.

Getting our daily laps in.

     Want to say thanks to all of our family and friends for their continued support.  Looking Evan in the eyes and telling him everything is going to be OK gets hard sometimes when more and more ailments rear their head.  It's nice to have friends that help take our minds away from the craziness that we've been experiencing lately and give us an ear to talk to.  I know we'll get through this and Evan will be stronger for it.

Some of Evan's support team.

     I also want to brag on my super-talented wife for a moment.  She's been working on some logo designs for Evan and we'd like to try and help raise more awareness for cancer research.  Having something to show solidarity among our family and friends is important to us too.  The logo below is her base image and the other designs are centered around Evan's courage beads.  For those not familiar with that I'll cover it in another blog entry as this one has already gotten wordier than I had planned.  Great job baby!

Expect to see this soon on shirts and koozies.