Day 7 - Updating the Update

After a scary morning, (fever spike of 103 lots of shaking and chills) things have settled down and the fever is under control.  A fever is a common, but potentially very serious complication.  Now the search goes on to determine the cause.  It is likely from one of two possible sources.  The first is a reaction to the transplant called a Neutropenic Fever and is not generally too serious.

The other possibility is a blood infection.  This can be extremely serious and is the reason he has been hospitalized.  Even a small infection can spread quickly to the entire body with no white  blood cells to stop it.  This is referred to as Septic Shock and is often life-threatening so that is the reason for the extreme caution.

In order to narrow down the possibilities a series of blood cultures was drawn.  The blood samples were placed into these containers the shape of Tabasco Sauce bottles.  There were some strange looking organisms already in the jars and over the next several days the lab will see if anything grows.  There were about 8 bottles in all and it looked like a bad 9th Grade Science project when they were done with the cultures.

For now he is safely on the BMT Transplant floor at the Huntsman and on heavy antibiotics just in case.  It's been another one of those hard, scary days where I'm feeling the need for a cute puppy picture.

A little puppy love to you too!

Step by step,

Lynn