We took E to the satellite hospital the other day for an appointment to do some regularly scheduled bloodwork.
We saw a mom & little girl who we know that were admitted for fever. :( They're in a difficult stage of treatment, so I hope her counts come up, her cultures come back negative, and that her fever breaks without having to spend too many days in hospital.
We helped E to paint a rock that will be going in a special rock garden at the hospital. All of the rocks in this garden will have been painted by children who are being treated for cancer.
E's bloodwork was fairly uneventful. They pricked his finger, and took the blood as opposed to accessing him through his port. We had him distracted with YouTube, so he was fairly co-operative.
The results were fine, but for the 2nd time in a row, his neutrophil counts were a bit higher than normal. We haven't heard anything from SickKids yet, but our nurse practitioner told us that they may want to bump up a couple of the dosages of his chemo meds.
According to https://www.AboutKidsHealth.ca, the goal of the Maintenance phase is "to consolidate and maintain remission....Blood work is important because doctors need to make sure that the amount of your
child’s white blood cells (neutrophils) are not too high or too low. If
they are too low, then the chemotherapy is killing too many marrow
cells, making your child neutropenic and at risk for developing an
infection. If the amount of neutrophils are too high, then the therapy is
not killing enough hidden leukemia cells."
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