IC Day 7 Update

OK, this is getting confusing.... I'm doing the Day 7 update on Day 8 because I wasn't able to get to a computer last night as it was my turn to stay at the hospital. I'll do a Day 8 later today. The other confusing part, for some anyway, is the title I've been using. IC stands for Intensified Consolidation which is the phase Nathan is now in - it does not stand for Intensive Care, we are just in general Pediatric at RUH (which stands for Royal University Hospital). So we are in Day 8 of the Intensified Consolidation phase and that phase is 8 weeks or 56 days long. The next confusing thing is that we are getting released today now. Dr Ali told us yesterday that we would be in the hospital until Wednesday for sure and possibly Friday. Then he phoned up to the ward today to tell us we'd be released today but there has been no new information (nothing has changed) which I guess goes back to "no news is good news".... confusing I tell you.

Some additional confusion happened here yesterday when the hospital phoned someone to come in to work simply to escort us from the ward to the Cancer Center. On the way we told her that we've made this trip a few times, and she replied with "well then, why did they call me? This is usually only for the first time." So she took us down there and then told us to find our own way back.

Nathan had another lumbar puncture (LP) to deliver chemo drugs to his spinal fluid and had another dose of ARAC (Cytarabarine). He gets general anaesthetic (put under) for his LP and this time he woke up very weird. The past times he has woke up kind of drowsy and wanted to sleep some more. This time he appeared wide awake but he was COMPLETELY out of it! He was wobbly sitting up, his eyes were rolling around and he was making very little sense when talking - that was all very disconcerting, but normal according to the nurses - just not his normal.

We came back up to the ward and you could tell that Nathan was ready to be out of the hospital as he and his parents had a few disagreements and there was some general poor behaviour going on. Not being nice to visitors or nurses, and again that was a change for him and one we didn't like at all. We were ALL ready to be out of the hospital! Luckily he had a great sleep last night and is in a much better and more agreeable mood today.

All of his blood counts have remained fairly good and that is why they are letting us out today, and he didn't have a fever last night - yay! It actually is kind of funny, he was at 37.9 but they don't consider it a fever until 38C, we'll take that. However, if his fever goes back up over 38.5 we may find ourselves right back in here.

Home will be a good change as we miss our little family being together!