Emily is back in the hospital

We had to take Emily to the ER and then she was admitted to the hospital tonight. She was neutropenic yesterday and is also fighting a virus. I pretty much knew this was going to happen, if you read the blog yesterday. With her ANC so low, I decided to check her regularly for fever, and tonight she felt warm and I got a 101.4, which is above the Oncology threshold if you are neutropenic, and it means you need to be in an Emergency room within 45 minutes. Since Emily is on immuno-suppresion drugs, time is critical in case she has an infection. To be blunt, this is the way many people pass away when on chemo, so it really raises the nerves and stress. It also shows what a roller coaster this is for all of us, one day we are celebrating that her CT is clear and that she is on maintenace, and then a week later we are in the hospital again for a unexpected complication. I swear everytime I let myself celebrate success in her treatment it backfires.

I took Emily's temp, and called Tracy, she was working tonight, so she was already at the hospital. Tracy called the docs from there at the hospital and I woke Haley up and got her dressed, then Emily, Haley and I headed up to Stanford. When we got there they were expecting us, which is nice, we don't have to wait to be seen. Tracy met up with us, and they did triage on Emily. They got a fever too, but actually not quite as high as me, but they use the highest reading anyone got, just to be sure they don't miss something. We got a isolation room in the ER and they started to do blood cultures, urine test, swabbed her sinus, and may do a chest xray but for now were going to wait. When I left the hospital at 2am they already knew her urine was negative for infection, so that's good. The children's hosptial is %100 full so for tonight Emily and Tracy are sleeping in the isolation room in the ER, tommorow morning after dischanges we will get a room for sure. They did ask if I wanted to tranfer down to Valley Med (county hosptial). Tracy used to work there and I know we don't want to get caught there over Christmas so I said no thanks. The oncologist was happy I choose that also, since Emily is being treated at Stanford, they would rather we stick it out one night in the ER. It's not comfortable but Tracy can actually go sleep in the cast room on C3 where she works if she wants so she has a bed if she wants it.

Emily' spirits are up, she feels ok except for her cold symptoms. Her very first question to me was "Daddy, does Santa come to the hosptial on Chrismas Eve?" and I said "of course he does, I am %100 sure he does. I am also going to bring her little Christmas tree from her bedroom up to her hosptial room. (it's not a live tree so it will be ok to do that). Emily and I spent a lot of the night waiting and joking around, I am so proud of how brave she is.

At this point we really don't know much other than she has a fever. I really feel like it's going to be just a virus and things will move on in their course. She is going to have to recover her levels before they let her go home, no matter what she has that is causing the fever. When I know more I will update the blog. It's time to get some sleep.