Immune System Crash

We have had a mostly quiet week at home. Brynlee did fever a little bit on Sunday, but it wasn't high enough that we had to call the hospital, and she has not had any fevers since. She also had her first bath in over a week, and we changed her dressing tonight on her Broviac. The Broviac that they put in this time is a super special one (it's a Power Broviac). Apparently they are better; however, it is a little bit different and so we are trying to get things figured out with that. Brynlee is very protective of her Broviac and the dressing this time. She says it is "owie" and it is difficult for me to even just look at the dressing to make sure it is still okay without her getting extremely upset. I hope this gets better for her the way it did the last time and doesn't bother her so much.  

 

We had our first home health blood draw today, and we discovered that Brynlee's immune system has officially crashed. Her WBC is 0.9, ANC 0.2, Hematocrit 29.2, and platelets 28. I honestly thought by the way she had been acting that her hematocrit would have been lower and that we would need to have a blood transfusion, but I wasn't expecting her ANC to be that low since she is on the Neupogen shots that are supposed to help her ANC recover faster. I think her ANC only got down this low one time the first time she went through treatment. Can you imagine if she wasn't on Neupogen? She would probably be at 0.0. Her platelets are low, but she isn't having any unusual bleeding or bruising, so hopefully that will go back up and we won't need a platelet transfusion. We have to get her ANC above 0.75 and her platelets above 75 by Sunday, March 3rd, in order to make counts to start her next round of chemo. If we don't make counts then we have to delay chemo. We have another CBC on Monday.

 

Speaking of the next round of chemo, we got approval from the doctor to try and do outpatient chemo in the clinic starting on the 4th of March. These will be really long days sitting in that boring and uncomfortable infusion area in the clinic; however, if everything goes okay, we get to sleep in our own beds at night! I think and I hope that this situation will work out better for our whole family.

 

Otherwise, Brynlee has not been sick from the chemo. She is, however, very gunky in her chest and has a runny nose and a little cough, which I am hoping is just the leftovers from the parainfluenza virus that she had and not something new. Her eye is also still droopy and her pupils are still not dilating the same, which is quite frustrating to me. I wasn't ready to deal with or accept yet another problem.

 

Hopefully we will have another quiet week, no fevers, no illnesses, no problems with her line, and rebounding counts.