October 26 - Weekend Update
Hudson and I are still hanging out at Hotel Children’s 😆 On Wednesday, he started with a runny nose and mild cough, so they ran a respiratory panel on him, and he was positive for parainfluenza 1. Unfortunately, this caused him to now be full isolation, so he can no longer leave his room at all. He is still dealing with the runny nose and cough, and he’s run fever on and off, spiking fever again this afternoon. His appetite has improved some over the last couple of days (he’s even gained back 0.2kg!), but he did have another bout of vomiting today, too. Overall things seem to be moving in the right direction. Hopefully the viral symptoms will resolve soon. 🙏🏻 😅 💛
We’ve had a few hard moments of wanting to go on walks and dino hunts in the hallway, or to the “choo choo” room (the mini playroom on our hall), but for the most part, Hudson’s handling isolation like a champ. A room full of toys, Moana and Blippi and, this week, The Land Before Time, dancing to songs on the Toniebox, coloring, and improvised dino hunts in the room have kept us busy. If anyone has any suggestions for games or interactive apps that are appropriate for a two year old and available on an Amazon Fire Kids tablet, I’ll gladly take them. Desperate times… 😅
Hudson’s ANC has been climbing, and he’s all the way up to 1290 today! This is great progress. My understanding is that post transplant, they like to see 1500 for two days before considering discharge. It seems Hudson’s platelet count may end up holding us up more than his ANC - he’s needed daily platelet transfusions for the last 7 days. His platelets were only 19 this morning, and he had a 15-20 minute nosebleed. Thankfully it stayed clotted, and we didn’t have to go through the nose packing again! I believe he’ll need to have platelets of at least 30 before we can go home. They have mentioned that we may be looking at discharge on Tuesday, but it’ll be according to how he’s doing and what his labs are like. This week we are also already preparing for his next transplant. Yesterday he had his echocardiogram and EKG, and Monday he’ll have his kidney GFR testing. His sedated hearing test is on 11/1, and his next chemo/stem cell transplant admission is scheduled to start 11/7, assuming all goes well the next few days.
Thank you again for your prayers! These days are long and hard, but we continue to feel and believe in the power of prayer. God is giving us all strength. Please continue to pray for Hudson - especially for his viral symptoms to resolve, for no more fevers or vomiting or nosebleeds, for ANC and platelet counts to rise, for perseverance through isolation, and for us to be home as a family soon!!! 🙏🏻
Jesus, we trust in you! 💛
