IC Day 10 Update

An earlier update today as we found out the plan - for now anyway. Our doctors have contacted infections diseases (ID) in order for them to help with Nathan's fever. They came and checked Nathan out this morning and their thought is that it is either an infection in the line which has shown yet, a virus which is something you cannot treat with antibiotics or a reaction to the ARAC chemo drug which just takes time to go away in is no trouble. So from that, the only thing they can treat is an infection in his line and so that is what they are doing. The current plan, Plan A, is that Nathan will be hospitalized for the next 10-14 days and be giving Vancmycin every four hours. That is a fairly strong antibiotic that should take care of any infection in the line - no guarantees that it won't come back. Oh and the 10-14 days are days straight without a fever and so today is Day 1 for that. If he gets a fever in few days then we will be switching to Plans B, C and/or D which include chest x-rays, stomach x-rays, CT scans and a couple other things I cannot remember. If they then still cannot figure out what is causing the fevers then they are going to surgically remove his port and treat for a week and then re-insert a new port surgically. I guess we are really hoping that we are in the hospital for the next 10-14 days as that is the shortest option!

Nathan had a pretty decent sleep last night as he either slept through every time they took his vitals or he want back to sleep darn quickly. That meant he was a pretty happy boy this morning which again confuses everyone as he certainly does not act or look sick right now. One thing about the hospital though, they can make a happy boy sad pretty quick. This was the seventh day for his port to be accessed so it had to be de-accessed, site cleaned and re-accessed. The first part is taking all the tape and opsite dressing off, which hurts. Next the nurses up here tortured him when de-accessing his port. The first nurse definitely didn't know what she was doing and we got her to get a second nurse. She too was making Nathan cry because it hurt and that really perplexed Shelley and I as it NEVER hurts at the Cancer Center. I told the nurse how they do it at the Cancer Center and the nurse told me how she usually does it and then she made Nathan cry some more. Finally she tried it the way I said and it popped right out - YEESH! I may start doing some of this stuff myself. Anyway, I called the nurses at the Cancer Center to see if one of them would come and do the re-accessing and they said they would pop up about 4pm. Hopefully I don't ruffle too many feathers on the ward but if these nurses want to practice on somebody they should not pick on a five year old boy who is already anxious about the pain!

We were finally able to give Nathan a bath today after much cajoling to get him in the tub. Would you believe he got to watch The Incredibles while in the tub?! Shelley and I need to make a new plan of how to run our household and have someone with Nathan 24 hours at the hospital for the next two weeks. I'm sure we'll be able to do it, especially if Nathan maintains his good spirits and does not have any more fevers.

I also forgot to mention in my post yesterday that they gave Nathan another drug called Lucovoran (sp?) that mops up the excess Methotrexate chemo drug. It is the Methotrexate that can cause mouth ulcers and hopefully the Lucovoran can help prevent that a little bit. Right now his mouth is looking fairly good and he is eating anything he wants just not very much still.