Visit to the School

Although the doctors said on Sunday that Ben should be fine to go to school today...with everything that is floating around right now we decided to stay home an extra day to ensure his ANC had a good chance to come back up out of the neutropenic levels.

Even though he stayed home, we decided that since the Book Fair was taking place yesterday and today we would take a little trip over to the school so Ben would have a chance to pick out some fun books while the annex wasn't so crowded. He also had a chance to poke his head in to say hello to his teachers and classmates. Everyone was so excited to see Ben! He brought everyone a fun Halloween themed baseball hat that we received from the Playroom at the Cancer Center and everyone loved them.

Ben will go back to school for a half day tomorrow before we head back over to the hospital to check his numbers. We are hoping for really good news so Ben won't need to miss the fun Halloween carnival and parade at school on Friday and of course the fun night of trick or treating on Saturday!!

We Are Home!!!!

After much speculation that we would need to wait until the official report from the CT scan, one of Ben's oncologists decided today that he was good to go home!!! We were so overjoyed! No words can express the excitement in the room. I think we were packed and ready to go in about 5 minutes.

We still do not know exactly what Ben had...but it was probably one of the thousands of viruses out there that they cannot test for. He still has a bit of a cough but no fever since Friday night. He is not able to go back to school quite yet, but should be able to by Wednesday. More than enough time to fully participate in all the Halloween festivities.

David is back home after spending much time with his Grammy and Poppy. Although we are so lucky he had such a safe and fun place to be during this whole ordeal, we are so happy to have him home. The boys were so cute upon reuniting (this was the longest they have ever been apart - the hospital did not allow visitors under the age of 18 during this horrible flu season). Of course, this was short-lived and they were back to their fighting and teasing and tormenting in no time :)

We also had the return of the puppies this afternoon! We were so happy to see Dakota and excited to see how much Cherokee has grown in the past 10 days. It was a crazy and noisy household by bedtime...just the way we like it! We are so grateful to have things back to normal!

The boys are sleeping soundly with Shaggy snuggling with David and Zorro loving up next to Ben! Yay!

Still in the Hospital

Well, it is a week later and Ben is still in the hospital but it looks like there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Ben's numbers continued to fall until his ANC was down to 100 and his fevers continued to spike up to 104.8+ (the little thermometer only goes to 104.8 so it may have been higher). Thankfully by mid-week his white blood count stopped the descent and started to ease its way back up but confusingly his high temperatures remained. Also perplexing, every test the doctors ran came back negative. Not the flu or other viruses they are able to test for, not a bacterial infection and not a fungal infection. Very frustrating! More than one doctor has commented that we may never know exactly what he had - just one of the thousands of viruses out there that there are no tests for. The great news is that after some medicine changes and of course being at the hospital for a week Ben's temperature finally seems to be under control. It has been under 100 without the help of Tylenol or Motrin since Friday night. He had a CT scan this morning and although the initial thoughts are that the images look good - the official report is still not in. We are trying to be patient but this is getting very frustrating!
We are crossing our fingers that they will discharge him tomorrow (of course we only have a chance of this if the fevers stay away) but it might be Monday because of the delayed CT scan report.
We are truly hoping that everything will be back to normal soon!

Ben is Back in the Hospital

Ben started to feel a little under the weather last Wednesday evening. He stayed home from school but we weren't worried because his symptoms were very mild and he didn't have a temperature...but all that changed Thursday afternoon. His temperature shot up so we went to the Pediatrician just to have them swab his nose to check for the flu and to get a blood sample to check his numbers. We went back home until the results were ready and during that time he started to feel completely better and his temperature went down so they ended up letting us stay home with instructions that we would need to head over to the hospital asap if his temperature came back. Well it did early Friday morning. We spent the day at the Infusion Center with his temperature going up and down. We also found out that he was neutropenic. By the afternoon, the doctors made the decision that he would need to be admitted.

Unfortunately, he is still there. He is feeling much better and his temperature seems to be under control but his white blood count is extremely low - continued to fall during the weekend. Hopefully they will not need to keep him long...but we will see!

October

Ben received Vincristine yesterday and started on his steroids for the month. All is fine, but he seemed a bit down at the hospital and didn't even want hot chocolate out of the cool new machines at the cancer center! At least by the end of the visit he started to exhibit some of his normal goofiness but the doctors and staff noticed a difference. His numbers were great (white blood count 1.8, hemogoblin 12.1, platelets 245,000 and ANC 1458) so the guess by everyone is that he is probably just tired of all of this stuff and maybe a little over tired. We are going to try to take it easy and go to sleep early...now if only we could get him to sleep in late!!