The Longest 21 Days

Kaitlyn doesn't feel well.  For the past day and a half she has had increasing nausea.  Yesterday she felt sick pretty much all day and it was much worse whenever she had to get up for any reason.  Her doctor just checked in on her and she asked him to stop asking her questions--I know when I feel very sick to my stomach it takes all my concentration just to deal with that so I suppose that's how she must be feeling.  He said that she's really far enough out from her last chemo treatment that that would not be what's causing this.  She's had a week of feeling pretty good and actually went for most of that time with no nausea at all, so I'm sure he's right about that.  Right now she's pretty much staying curled up in bed trying to sleep through it.  He said we should see her counts start to bump in about 10 days.  Of course, since with not having an immune system this is the most dangerous time, the 3 weeks from the end of chemo to her cell counts coming up always seems to take forever!

During the night she spiked a fever,  but it came down to the normal range on it's own only to go back up a little this morning then back down again as well.  They started an antibiotic i.v. just in case there is an infection brewing, but as of right now nobody seems to know.  They took blood cultures and sent them off to the lab, but it takes about 48 hours to get a result.

There is some good news:  She isn't having any pain.  All of her labs look good--in fact her red cell count is in a normal range which hasn't been the case at this point in the prior rounds, but is definitely a positive.  A nurse and a resident both told me at different times this morning that the mucositis in her mouth was looking much better (how that works when you have no infection fighting or repair cells to do that work in your body is a mystery to me and probably to them as well!)
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Just a Note:

Dr. Barnette told me some interesting things yesterday about the improvements over the last 8-10 years with leukemia treatment and success (i.e., survival).  He said that they haven't had a new drug to treat ALL (the other type of leukemia) since the 70's, yet the survival rate on that type has risen to about 95%!  That's probably better than if you get the flu!  The difference has been in the pattern and dosages of administering the drugs.  He also said that better and wider-range of support drugs alone (anti-nausea, pain meds, antibiotics, etc.) brought the survival rate up 10+% from what it used to be.  With AML (Kaitlyn's type of leukemia) just keeping them in the hospital instead of discharging them like they used to during the chemo recovery phase has made a huge difference.  The better understanding and procedures for bone marrow transplants also has had a great influence on successful outcomes.

Although I look forward to the day when these harsh treatments are a thing of the past, I am so grateful to live in a time where they are available and the research and work that produces and improves on them is valued.

God continues to impart his mercy, grace, and wisdom to us--who can deny it?