Day 29 - Weekends are extra hard...

Weekends in the hospital are really hard to take.  I remember how much I hated weekends during the first 6 years of Ryan's life, and this weekend is just bringing back PTSD.

One of the hard parts about weekends is that nothing really happens (in this case, we won't get results until Tuesday, since it's a holiday weekend).  It's very frustrating.

We got more training today and apparently passed the 'test'.  One more step to getting released.

Ryan is still pretty weak, but he's trying.  We even managed to get through a little math homework today.  :)  Staying positive is getting a harder, but we are hanging in there.  It's frustrating knowing that nothing is really going on over the weekend... no results and no decisions.  It's like the rest of the world gets time off, but we are still here, waiting patiently for everyone to come back to work.

Ryan's ANC continued to go down today.  We know that if his numbers do not come back up, he is at a higher risk of translocation once we finish the antibiotics next week.  So, we are hoping that he comes back up in the next day or two.  On a positive note, he is still in good spirits and is handling his confinement with his typical spunky attitude.

Thank you all for your good thoughts and prayers.

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Blasts - (not checking this every day anymore)
ANC - 117 (Patrick and the Fellow are betting on whether this will go back down to 0)
Hematocrit - 23.7
Hemoglobin - 8.0
RBC - 2.64
WBC - 0.4
Lymphocytes - 215
Creatine - 0.2
Glucose - 79 (apparently, no one is concerned about this anymore..)
Platelets - 82

Description of lab numbers, in layman's terms:

Blasts - roughly the number of leukemia cells found in the sample.  We want this to be 0.
ANC -  This tells us how well his body can fight off normal infections... We want this to be greater than 500..  Normal would be greater than 1500.
Hematocrit/Hemoglobin (H&H)  - This is a number of how much blood is in his system.  His normal range is 28-32/9-11.  The numbers are linked, so they are usually referenced together.  We will transfuse him more Red Blood Cells if he gets below 21/7.0.  (this is the blood you donate at blood drives, and we expect to use lots of it)
RBC (Red Blood Cells) - The number of Red Blood Cells in his body.  Normal is 4 - 5.5.  He has always been low, so we are happy with numbers around 2.5.  This number will go down with chemo.
WBC (White Blood Cells) - This tells us how many white blood cells he has (in thousands).  Normal is between 4.5 and 10.  We expect this to remain low, between 1.5 and 2.5 for a while.
Creatine - This is a good number to make sure the kidneys are working.  Normal range is between .5 and 1.2... If this gets higher, it means his kidneys are struggling.
Glucose - This number tells us that the pancreas is working.  Some kids struggle with diabetes as a result of the meds.  We want to see this number remain above 60 and below 150.
Lymphocytes - Non-cancerous T-Cells and B-Cells.  Normal would be around 1000, so we expect this number to be low.  This is the number of cells that will kill off bad cells like viruses.
Platelets - This is the number of platelets in the blood, which helps with clotting.  Normal is greater than 150.  We will transfuse more platelets if he gets lower than 30.
Co-Ags (PT,APTT) - These numbers tell us how fast he clots.
Bilirubin (Direct/Indirect/Total) - Bilirubin tells us how well the liver is working.  Normally, these numbers are less than 1, which is good.  However, when the liver starts to be under stress, they may go up.  Total Bilirubin is the Conjugated (Direct) + Unconjugated (Indirect).  The doctors said these numbers might come up, as his liver is trying to process all the meds we are giving him.
ALT/AST - these are liver numbers, letting us know how much stress the liver is under.  Normal range is between 10-50.