A bump in the road

Chemo number four seemed to go off without a hitch, other than one throwing up incident, it was pretty much smooth sailing.  The type of chemo that he got this time had to be hooked up to him for 72 continuous hours, unfortunately this meant that he couldn't leave the ward at all for his full hospital stay.  Poor little guy was pretty bored, but we managed to entertain him with wagon rides around the ward and LOTS of toys that we had brought from home.  He was in great spirits when he came home and was eating and drinking normally almost immediately.

Just as we were starting to think this chemo stuff is getting easier... yes, you guessed it, he got a fever!  What would be considered a mild temperature for a normal child is considered an emergency for a child with cancer, so when Cameron started to feel a bit warm on Friday afternoon, I started to pack the hospital bags.

It started out as a mild fever, not really high enough for us to go directly to the ER but definitely something that needed to be watched.  I immediately became completely paranoid and started obsessively taking his temperature every 15 minutes, I just new something wasn't right.  And sure enough, just as the traffic hit rush hour, Cameron's temperature spiked and we had to get him to the emergency room.

Frank was amazing and offered to sit through the emergency room with him and spend the night so that I could go home and take care of James.  I readily agreed as I detest the ER!  Poor Frank sat through 5 hours in the ER before Cameron was transferred to the main hospital as there were no rooms available on the Cancer ward.  By Saturday morning, Cameron's fever was so high that they had to delay giving him a blood transfusion until the fever was under control.  He was finally given blood and once that was done, he was transferred to the cancer ward.  He was put into isolation while we waited for the blood test results to come back so that we could discover the cause of the fevers.  He has had a runny nose for about a month, so I was concerned that he might have flu or RSV.  So far all of his blood cultures have come back negative, we are still waiting for one more to come back, but as long as that one is negative, we should be out of isolation by tomorrow. 

It appears that the cause of the fever is an infection in the G Tube (feeding tube) site - AGAIN!  This thing is starting to be a real pain in the rear end!  According to the nurses, some kids get an infection in the G Tube site every time their white blood cell counts drop after chemo.  Cameron's counts had been at an impressive 2900 on Wednesday, but by Friday when he got to the ER they had dropped to 100 and this morning they were at 0,01.  No wonder the child's body cant fight the infection.  He is clearly in a lot of pain.  He tries to sleep sitting up in a sort of kneeling position, with his head rested against me.  It seems like one of the only ways that he can get comfortable.  I hate seeing him like this, feeling sore and yukky, but I am so thankful that it wasn't something worse.  He is on antibiotics and pain medication, so at least he is on the mend.  We will be stuck in hospital until his white blood cell count comes back up.

James is missing his brother again, but we have given him a photo of Cameron (which he carries everywhere and kisses constantly) and he has started sleeping with one of Cameron's teddy bears.  It seems to have helped at least a little bit and James doesn't seem as depressed this time.  Thank God for Frank, he is such an amazing daddy and husband, not only did he spend two nights at the hospital looking after Cameron, he got home today and immediately took James out for a day of fun to take his mind off Cameron being away again.  They visited the pet store and the park and even had pizza for dinner.  Lucky boy!