Stable and Pain Under Control

Good Afternoon,

Xander's fluid level in his pericardium continues to be at a good level. The Docs are attributing the condition to a virus, however, all viral tests have come back negative. As we know, there are a LOT of viruses and not all of them we can test for! He was administered IVIG to help fight off the infection (this was the same therapy that helped him through the Zoster virus)

The cardiologist fellow was in this morning and it appears that the pericardium noise that we were hearing has really gotten better and our nurse said she could not hear it either. This means that most likely the inflammation is indeed getting better. He will have an X-ray and echo tomorrow or Tuesday to get a better look at the situation.

His counts are good today, although dropping from the big jump with neupogen, they are doing fine. He is holding his hemoglobin well and his platelets are dropping off more slowly than previous weeks - all GOOD NEWS!

He got up and walked around today and looked out the windows some. We'll try to repeat this again later today.

His pain is being managed with oxycodone. We are backing it off one notch today, to every 6 hours, rather than every 4. He is still on PCA morphine.

Eating... well.... he ate a pretzel yesterday (this was first solid food in days) and is on TPN-Lipids to keep his nutrition up. Back at square one with eating, but this will probably be a long road anyway!

All in all, our stress level is a little lower today and getting together with friends at the knit-a-thon was a great way to relax (had a chair massage too!)

You all are so loving and kind and thank you for sticking by us as our bumpy road winds slowly along.

Peace and Love