D+42: Change in weather?

WBC 1.5
ANC 945

The news over the weekend pretty much sucked. Luckily, today provided some relief on a number of fronts.

First, Ryan's temperature returned to normal this morning. He had a fever all night long, which persisted despite a very large dose of steroids (anti-inflammatory) and regular doses of Tylenol. I was pretty scared at first, because Ryan's fever persisted for about 5 hours after receiving the steroids. The doctor warned me that it could take 6-12 hours to have an impact, and sure enough, the fever began to drop in the 7th hour. It's good to see normal temperatures again, but we probably aren't addressing the source of the problem (e.g. infection), just the symptoms. If the fever is related to GVHD, then the steroids will actually address the underlying problem to a certain extent. However, we really need to get back on the cyclosporine ASAP.

With all the increased fluids, Ryan is giving us a lot of 'output'. We want to see urine, since that indicates his kidneys are working (and hopefully healing). We do not want to see diarrhea, which can dehydrate you in no time flat (the opposite of our goal with the kidneys). Dr. A told us about a teenage patient that lost 6 liters of fluid in an hour. He said that if the kid was not in the hospital when that happened, the dehydration would have certainly killed him. So, this is not something we want to mess around with. Ryan is receiving some drugs which discourage fluid from entering his intestines and the resulting diarrhea. It seems like Ryan is urinating more and pooping less, so that's a very good thing. Hopefully, he can keep it up.

On the GVHD front, Dr. G feels pretty confident that we can keep it in check for the immediate future. They are basically throwing every drug they can at Ryan that doesn't affect renal function. It appears to be working; Ryan's rash is receding a bit.

In other news, we changed rooms today. Apparently, the hospital has a policy that a room must undergo a full-clean if it has been occupied by the same patient for more that 30 days. So I guess it makes sense that on Day 54 of our stay in the hospital they actually get around to doing it. It actually worked out in our favor, because we are now in one of the 'kids' rooms. The theme is 101 dalmatians and the color scheme is yellow and green (huh?).