Monday’s Blood Draw

After every chemo cycle, Adam will undergo a series of blood draws every 3 days so the doctors can determine whether he needs any transfusions, depending on his blood cell counts.  The blood draws will continue until his cell counts recover from the chemo treatment. At that point, he would likely be ready to begin the next chemo treatment. Adam had his first blood draw yesterday since his 2nd chemo cycle last Tuesday.

After the blood draw, we waited about 1 hour for the results and he did not need any transfusions this time. His red blood cell counts were slightly below normal but not low enough to require transfusion. His white blood cell counts were also very low but this is not something that can be helped by a transfusion. Adam needs to produce his own white blood cells, which the injections are supposed to help with. Right now he is considered ultra-neutropenic. For those of us non-medical professionals, neutropenia is a condition where the white blood cell (WBC) count is extremely low, and WBCs are what helps the body to fight off infection.

While at the hospital we also had a CVC (central venous catheter) specialist come to take a look at his dressing to see if the redness was concerning. She noticed Adam’s skin was a little red when the dressing was removed. The adhesive may have been causing his skin to be irritated. The good news is, he doesn’t appear to have any infection or allergic reaction to the adhesive. She re-did his dressing and put a smaller dressing on, which fits him SO much better. The other one was way too big. Smaller dressing = less adhesive and hopefully less skin irritation. We will follow up with the CVC specialist again next week.

How’s his eating? Adam is still showing zero interest in solid foods, but his breastmilk drinking is doing well and increasing a little every day. He likes his new high chair, and we hope these budding teeth will make him want to start eating solids soon.

Some disappointing news- apparently the pediatric home care nurse that we thought would work out has informed us that they no longer can provide the service we need. Back to square one. Please continue to pray for this.

We are back at home again, and will be back to the hospital on Thursday for another blood draw. Thank you so much to everyone who has been following these updates and constantly praying for us! Adam has been doing well so far and there seem to be less side effects with this 2nd round of chemo. Though we don’t have any big news to report this time, we are so thankful for these small victories each day and every week.