Day 24 - Dealing with nausea, and all looks good

We stopped the PCA (patient controlled anesthesia) today, and switched to a wean of oxycodone.  This comes with it's own set of withdrawal symptoms, like mood swings and more nausea.  But, I think we are getting it under control and he's feeling better this evening.  We even had lunch and dinner!

We also had another contrast CT scan, to make sure nothing is draining into the abdomen cavity from his ostomy.  Although no one came in and confirmed that all is good, I assume if there was a problem, someone would have said something.

His ANC and WBC numbers came back down to reasonable numbers (888 and 1.6), which is probably because the doctors stopped the medication they were giving him to artificially increase his counts.  This is all good and everyone is pleased... If he continues to do well. they might let us go this week.  (fingers crossed)

Thank you all for the continued prayers and good thoughts...

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ANC - 888
Hematocrit - 22.3
Hemoglobin - 7.7
RBC - 2.65
WBC - 1.6
Lymphocytes - 544
Creatine - 0.2
Glucose - 136
Platelets - 222

Description of lab numbers, in layman's terms:
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.

Comments

  1. That is a happy face :) so glad all is going well, he is a trooper, as are his parents and the rest of his family !! Keep up the good work :) prayers are still working and going up for all of you.
    LUV U all

    ReplyDelete

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