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Johnny had the scope of his lungs today.  They went in as far as they could, but couldn't get all the way to the spot in question.  They did fill the area with clean fluid, and then collected it for testing.  The doctor that did the scope said the fluid looked pretty clear so she wasn't confident that anything will grow on a culture.  She also said the area of Johnny's lungs visible through the scope looks really healthy.  Johnny's Hem/Oc doctor was both pleased and disappointed in the report from the scope.  She was very happy to hear that Johnny's lungs look healthy, but she was hoping that there would be some material that would confirm what type of infection is working on that spot.  They did send all of the fluid off for testing, and there is still some hope that we will learn something.  If that happens I hope it will be soon because Dr. Shah will schedule a surgical biopsy of the spot early next week if we don't have some answers before then.  She is getting impatient because Johnny is going on two weeks without chemo while we fight this mysterious infection.  She wants to know exactly what it is so that she can make an informed decision on whether he can move forward on treating the leukemia, and so that she can take him off some of the meds he is getting just to cover every base.  At this point the spot in his lung seems to be the only really abnormal thing going on, so the thought is that once we know what is going on with that we should be able to focus on just the meds needed to treat that infection. 

Right now Johnny is on so many different types of medications that the nurses are having trouble scheduling everything.  He only has the peripheral IVs so he can only get so much medication at once which is why they have him on a pretty full schedule.  Dr. Shah wants to get him off of everything that is not directly targeting the infection in his lungs.  She is worried that because many of the drugs are very strong they are making him feel really bad, and she also believes there is a possibility that some of the drugs may actually be causing this constant fever that is currently being attributed to an infection.  Obviously the best case would be that we find that the spot is actually popping on the CT because it is healing, and that the fever and overall crappy feeling is due to the meds.  The only way we will know is to actually confirm what is going on in his lung.  I'm not excited about the idea of poking a hole in Johnny's lung, but he needs to get back on chemo so....