One Week Down, Five to Go

I am writing this blog from the BMT unit of Northside hospital. Mark was admitted last night because he had a fever of 102.7 degrees. One good thing is Mark's white cell count is still between 7 and 8, so they were not too worried about infection, but still better safe than sorry. By the time we arrived at the hospital, Mark's temp dropped to 100.4 degrees and this morning it was back down to 97 degrees. The doctor said they think Mark's fever was a reaction to the antifungal medication they started giving him Monday. So now they are discontinuing that specific medication and he will start a different antifungal on Monday when he starts his arsenic treatment. Thankfully, Mark feels like a new person today. His color looks better, he isn't as nauseas, and he is fever free.

The rest of the week went pretty well. Mark's treatment quickly became routine. We show up at the BMT Clinic after a morning of nausea and vomiting, they give Mark nausea medication, start fluids, give him pre-meds and antifungal, and then do whatever chemo is necessary. Thankfully, Mark is done with the chemo part of the consolidation phase. He finished daunorubicin on Wednesday and they unhooked his IV pump of cytarabine on Thursday.

The week did become difficult on Thursday when Mark starting feeling sick and vomiting. he felt miserable and I could not do anything to help except try to make him take his medicine. Again, thankfully he feels better today, though he is still feeling nauseas. At least he finally ate a little today at breakfast (first food he has eaten since about 10:00 Thursday night). Now we are simply sitting in the hospital waiting for them to discharge him. The doctor said he should be able to leave this afternoon, but they are struggling to get his potassium level to normal. After two bags of potassium, it is still low so we are waiting to hear back from the pharmacist about what they want to do next.

So, continue to pray for Mark's side effects to subside so he can make it through the next few weeks as comfortably as possible; pray they are able to get his potassium normalized; and pray we can go home today.

With a thankful heart,
Amanda