Kal woke up this morning around 4 a.m., being very restless. He was restless through the night, but that time he became awake enough to have a hard time going back to sleep. It took about an hour, but he finally fell back asleep with me rocking him. When I woke up later, around 8, I promised myself I would give myself a nap whenever Kal would take a nap next.
Kal has been doing fairly well today. He's just been very restless, but only threw up twice, and the volume is much less than it has been. Hooray! Because he's been restless, though, it took me forever to try and get him to take a nap today. Seriously, I was trying for about 2 and a half hours to get this kid to sleep. His eyes would be closed and he would act sleepy, except that he was super squirmy and kept kicking his legs. The nurse told me this is also a sign of withdrawal. To help, we finally decided she should give him some anti-anxiety medication, which is common for BMT kids to get to counteract the affects of withdrawal. Once he got that, it seemed to settle him down so both he and I could get a good nap in for the day. Yay!
Last night and today, Kal has been going to town trying to suck on his pacifier. This is a great sign, showing his mouth sores are healed enough for him to do so. I tried giving him some Pedialyte and he actually took about 30 mL (about 1 oz)! He even wanted more, but the doctors told me to not give him more than that because his tummy is still learning to work again and we wouldn't want to overdo it. I tried to give him a little formula later on in the evening, but he only got about 5 mL down until he started gagging. Still, anything is progress!
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| Drinking Pedialyte, like a boss! |
My dear friend visited me this afternoon and dropped off some goodies. She is so sweet and thoughtful. It was great to chat with her. Soon after, my mom and Kayelee also came to visit me. They brought me some dinner, and Kayelee and I went down to the playroom while my mom got some good snuggling time in with Kal in the room. Visitors always brighten me day! (:
So, I was thinking maybe we would actually be going home either tomorrow or Thursday, but after speaking to the nurse (who asked the nurse practitioner), she said they were estimating hopefully being discharged by the end of this week. I don't know if that means Friday (by the end of the work week) or this weekend sometime.
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| Kal has been much more awake and alert these past couple of days! (: |
Okay, ooops! I must have jinxed it, actually. Wellllll, right now, as I was typing, Kal just became pretty restless in his bed as he's sleeping. The nurse just took his temperature, and it's 38.3 degrees Celsius (they use metric system here in the hospital), which is equivalent to 100.94 degrees Fahrenheit. Anything above 100.4 is concerning to them and is considered a "true fever." They will be taking some blood cultures and putting him back on antibiotics for good measure. When Kal engrafted, the doctor told me as long as Kal doesn't have fevers or signs of graft-vs-host, we should be sent home in roughly a week after his engraftment. If he would get something like a fever, for instance, he said, all cards are off the table. Well, if that's true, it looks like we might have to stay a little longer than planned. We'll have to wait and see what the blood cultures come back looking like. Well, poo...
***Update: Nurse just took gave him Tylenol, did blood culture tests and then re-checked his temperature. He is at 38.7º C now, which is 101.6º F. He is calling the on-call doctor or nurse practitioner to inform them, and said they will most likely start him on an antibiotic.
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