Mike and Johnny sent me home Wednesday and Thursday,  my first time home in over 10 days.  I have to admit, it was nice to be on the 'outside' for a while.  Mike had been pushing me to go home for quite some time, but I didn't want to leave -- then Johnny told me to leave because I was 'freaking him out' .  No matter what time of day or night he looked over at me, I was starring at him -- sometimes I blinked, but for the most part just stared at him. I tried to explain to him it was a' mom thing and he wouldn't understand', but he didn't go for it. 

My time on the outside was pretty uneventful all the way around so last night I came and relieved Mike.  About an hour after Mike left for the outside, Johnny decided to spike a fever -- first one since last Friday.  Great. He was given Tylenol and started back on his antibiotic concoction. His temp was about 102.1, heart rate 177, and blood pressure seemed to be dropping.  Awesome.  I had flash backs of our ER experience and started to 'panic' a little. Okay, A LOT.  I had the nurse charge, the doctor's and anyone else who would listen to me, in the room as I demanded that he be put on a heart and blood pressure monitor.  They gave in and put him on a heart monitor but passed on the BP.  Johnny told me to "cool it!"  It took 4 hours for his heart rate to drop to the 140's-130's and fortunately his blood pressure stabilized.

Cultures were drawn and so far nothing has shown up.  We may know what is going on to make him spike a fever again.  His Butt. This is the time you may want to stop reading if you don't like butt/poop talk.  His platelets/red blood cells/ANC's have been extremely low for weeks and weird things happen to you when your counts are low -- like little fissures (tears) on your ass. In addition, this 'special area' is already irritated from radioactive poo shooting out the past 20 days.    

The docs came in this morning and said that this is probably another bacterial infection due to low counts and a sore bottom, in an area that is hard to keep squeaky clean. He will continue with 4 antibiotics he's had in the past, stuff for pain, anti fungals -- and no chemo on Monday. Our goal is to keep him on the 9th floor and OUT of ICU.  I think that we nipped this in the bud and he will get past this like he did the other infections.  The kid's a fighter!