Sunday, January 17, 2010

Emily is home, quicker than expected.

Emily got out of the hospital earlier than expected and got to spend last night in her own bed. Her labs earlier in the day Saturday were good, her ANC was around 650. They also track percentage of neutrophils in the WBC count and can see a virus start to clear, even before the symptoms go away, as I recall she was admitted with %39 and on Saturday was up to %54. Basically what they could see was that Emily is getting better. She also had not had a fever since she was admitted. Since 9pm Saturday night was technically 48 hours after her first IV antibiotics, I asked day I asked for a conditional discharged at 9pm. The plan was to keep her overnight and discharge her during rounds on Sunday morning. Since all the signs looked good, and Emily herself seemed totally fine relative to why she was there, they agreed to let her go at 9pm. And then ended up giving her last IV antibiotics early and letting her go around 8pm. It was great to all be home last night. It all depends on external factors but there is a good chance that that was her last in-patient admission in her treatment. Technically she will be admitted for scans, but I mean overnight in a ward. All her nurses during this stay commented that she was their easiest patient and their happiest patient. I had a fairly long chat with Dr. Dahl, the oncologist on call this weekend, and he thought she looked great. There are no new concerns and she seems to be doing great overall. Dr. Dahl is who you get if your child has Leukemia and he has excellent bed side manner, it's like talking with your Dad, and you can tell he loves children. Also since Leukemia and Emily's form of Lymphoma are so related, he was a great person to have examine her with fresh eyes.

Emily is still on hold from her chemo until labs Wednesday, when she will likely resume at %50 chemo for the following two weeks.

There are 53 days of treatment left.

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