Latest Update : They are keeping her for at least 48 hours.

After a roller coaster night and morning they finally decided to keep Emily in patient here at Packard for I.V. antibiotics and observation.

This all started last night around 2:30 in the morning. Emily woke me up and told me her tummy "really hurt". I could tell by the way she looked that she was going to throw up so I helped her into the bathroom. She threw up and we all went back to bed. We had given her chemo around an hour earlier and thought it was just a side effect. Then around 3:30 am she woke us up again because she needed to throw up. This time Tracy observed that she had a fever. We were concerned because we had been in San Diego about a week ago, and that's where the swine flu had spread so we were worried she could have swine flu. We called the Oncologist and she told us that if we were worried we could come into the E.R. for a work up, so Tracy and Emily came in, and I stayed home with Haley. I will be honest that I really didn't think anything was going to be wrong, because our last few trips to the E.R. have been uneventful. Around 6:30am Tracy called me to tell me they had diagnosed Emily with Pneumonia, about the last thing I expected to hear. She had a fairly large area effected on her left lung on the lobe. I kicked things into gear and made arrangements to drop Haley with my Mom so I could join Tracy and Emily at the E.R. Just after I dropped Haley off with my Mom, I got a text message from Tracy saying they were going to give her I.V. antibiotics and send her home, so it was sounding like it wasn't going to be as serious as we thought. I guess it would be around 8:30 am at this time. Then between 8:30 and 10:30 the doctors were going back and forth about whether she would be admitted or was going home. Her sugars in her blood were low, her potassium was high, and her O2 saturation was on the low side. All of these factors plus the pneumonia ultimately made them come to the conclusion that she needed to be admitted for 48 hours. So, here we are in 1 North at Stanford in an isolation room.

As nice as the new Oncology floor is, we really hoped to never have to be in-patient in it. It is nice, all the rooms are private and Emily is feeling pretty well, all things considered. Since she no longer has her port, she has an IV and is having to deal with additional needle sticks, but she is being very brave and it's going well. Right now as i type this she is eating Chex Mix and watching Zach and Cody on the Disney channel.

Later today the Oncology team is going to do a full exam on her to really assess where we are and how long she may need to stay.

I talked with the Dr. in the hall and asked him what the drill was and what was going to happen. I also asked him if he thought this may be a relapse of the lymphoma. Of course he couldn't say much definitively but here is what he said. First of all it's great news that she is not neutropenic, what that means is Emily has some white blood cells to fight this on her own. She is also on two I.V. antibiotics (Vanco and Ceftriaxone) which they can give large doses of since she is here in the hospital, which should really knock this as well as it can be. He characterized her pneumonia as "fairly large". He said he suspects it is not a relapse of Lymphoma but can't be totally certain, but said since she is in maintenance he really doesn't think it's her cancer coming back. He suspects is bacterial and not viral pneumonia so can be treated with antibiotics. He seemed to be pretty calm about this and told me "it's not uncommon to see this" and his voice cued me to not worry too much.

So, that's where we stand, hopefully she will bounce out of here quicker than expected but right now it's wait and see.

Needless to say, Tracy and my vacation is on hold, in fact Tracy is not going for sure, and I am pretty sure I need to cancel as well. We were going with a group for a friends 40th birthday and that's the only reason I am even considering still going, but I know I would worry the whole time, and if Emily weren't getting better I would kick myself forever for not being here.