We are home, a day and a half felt like an eternity at the hospital! She never got a fever again while we were there, so they let us go home. About an hour before we were set to leave, the nurse brought in the CBC results from this morning, and I noticed her ANC had dropped to 100! Remember when we arrived the day before, it was 4700! When the resident doc came in to tell me we could go home, I asked her if she had noticed, because no one had even told me she was neutropenic! She looked shocked, they had not even looked at her results and were about to send us home. So she talked with the other doctors, and since her culture had not grown anything, they decided to just send her home with IV antibiotics again. So we had to wait a couple more hours to get her first dose and make sure she had no reaction to it, everything seems to be slow motion at the hospital when you are dying to get home! I want to just do it all for them! In their defense, they have to wait for the pharmacy, I was just itching to high tail out of there. I was laughing with the oncologist that the hospital felt like a prison, so she said Brinley was going home on "probation". Any incidents (fevers) and she would be right back in there. We got a good laugh out of that. They expect her numbers would stay low since she crashed so early after the chemo, so we are probably hanging out alone this Christmas, this is the lowest her ANC has ever been.

Her red blood is low, so they want to check her Monday to see if she needs a transfusion. They considered it at the hospital, but the onc and I agreed to wait until she really needed it, since she seems to recover and has only needed 1 transfusion so far.

I was so frustrated when she got her fever. I called the oncologist when Brinley got it and tried to talk her out of making us go to the hospital. She gets this fever every time, 2 days after her chemo, and it's never an infection. I know we are better safe than sorry, and I would much rather have that approach by our doctors, but David's party was that night and we were on our way, and I was really excited to go hang out with the people he works with, some adult time!! Oh, how I hate to miss the fun! I was so close to telling the oncologist that this whole cancer thing was sure inconveniencing our lives, but I was pretty sure she wouldn't think I was funny, so I kept it to myself. Lol. She said we needed to be there within the hour, so I said okay, and brought my disappointed self and Brinley to the ER. Ugh. It was really awful. They took longer than usual to get us a room, and it was late, so Brinley was grouchy, and just taking her vitals made her scream like crazy! She wouldn't calm down, and couldn't take off her mask, she was yanking on it and flopping her body all over. I finally just sighed and let her get it out, I'd be pretty ticked too.

3 comments:

Stacy said...

Wow Kristin! So how long does it take usually for her numbers to go back up? I am so glad you guys are home.

John Hanks said...

Oh, the small gifts in life. More to be grateful for, eh? You're writing a great talk on opposition, too, aren't you? What are your thoughts on that?

Kristin said...

Stacy,
They said it may take longer this time because she crashed so early, she may drop more before she starts to recover.