Home, Week 52.5

Okay, this has been going on for a week, but I didn't want to say anything because things weren't certain. We now have more information, so here goes.

Last Monday, when Mom was at hydration, she spiked a fever of 102.9, just 15 minutes after being normal. She was shaking with the chills. They gave her Tylenol and an anti-biotic, and she normalized enough to go home, with orders to call the doctor on call if she got a fever again overnight, and to go to the doctor in the morning. The infusion nurses took a blood culture from her port, as well as a urine culture, to try to figure out what was causing all this. The initial thought was that she was septic.

At 4am, she spiked a fever of 102.6, so we called the doctor, and because she didn't have the shaking chills, just a fever, he said take Tylenol, which worked.

The next day at the doctor's office, they had preliminary results back from the cultures, saying that she had a staph infection, but they didn't know what strain it was yet. Her urine culture was negative, but the port draw was positive. They gave her hydration and an IV anti-biotic right there in the office, with orders to have an IV anti-biotic every day for the next two weeks, and to get a peripheral blood draw (from her arm, not her port).

Wednesday, she went to the infusion center for hydration again, and they did the peripheral blood draw. They also had the final analysis of the cultures from Monday, and its staph epidermidis. The peripheral draw came back negative, but because they didn't have a peripheral blood draw at the same time as the draw from the port, they didn't know if it was an infection in her port, or an infection in the blood that could have minimized in two days.

Longer story short, she's one week into IV anti-biotics. Next week, when she's finished her second week, they'll do another blood draw, both from her port and peripherally, to see if the staph is still around. If it's gone, great. If it's in her port, but not her peripheral draw, they'll continue anti-biotics to see about killing the infection in her port. Anything after that will have to be crossed at that point. Pray extra hard for her. We need it more than you know right now.

Home, Week 52

Mom went septic this week. She has a staph infection (we're still waiting to find out what strain it is), which is a bacterial blood infection. She spiked a fever of 102.9 on Monday, and 102.6 early Tuesday morning. She's getting anti-biotics via her port for the next two weeks, but she's remaining outpatient.

This Friday is one year since she got out of the hospital. I told her that Monday night, and told her that her goal was to make it a full year without going back in. So far, so good. =) Happy Anniversary, Mom!

Home, Week 51

Her count went up to 933. She had a PT scan on Tuesday, and we will get the results next week to find out where the cancer is, and find out what the game plan is at that point. This last chemo drug wasn't working, obviously, so she may end up taking a little break before starting a new drug... her body is getting worn out again.

Home, Week 49, Another New Chemo, Round 2

Well, she went for another round of chemo. We're hoping that it will work the second round. =)