Alyson’s Journey

The bone marrow showed no leukemic cells and only a few lymphocytes. There’s just nothing going on in there. The echocardiogram didn’t show anything out of the ordinary.

Three new tests were ordered: CMV, Human Parvo (aka Fifth’s Disease) and HHPV 6. All three are a stretch but we’re grasping at reasons here. The tests are run on blood and were sent to the lab on Monday. The results take “a few days”, so we’ll see when they arrive. The treatment for CMV is rather ugly, HHPV 6 doesn’t have a treatment and Parvo requires IV-IG. Because the immunoglobulins (IG) attack the Parvo virus, it is thought that in immunocompromised patients, it is possible that it helps in other viral infections. The side-effects are also minimal. Therefore, Alyson was started on IV-IG last night around 9:30pm. Vitals were taken every 20 minutes for an hour and then hourly for the next four. It goes without saying that I’m a tad tired today and have requested that the treatment be moved to a more reasonable timeframe. We’re now scheduled to begin at 4pm. Much, much better.

Her Levofloxacin has been replaced with Meropenem.

In the positive column, Alyson hasn’t had a fever in 24 hours. She is also still asleep. (It’s noon as I write this post.) Her rashes are all but gone and the skin peeling is about done as well. The morphine, duh, has taken away all the pain and her buns were immensely helped by two long baths yesterday. She’s still drinking water and has tried a little soy milk and then yogurt.

A small negative cropped up yesterday (Tuesday) morning in the form of dark eye circles. They appeared again this morning, so I’m in contact with the nutritionist to change Alyson’s IV nutrition formulation. My feeble memory believes that the current one has eggs and soy. I’m asking that the soy be removed given that she’s had issues with too much edamame in the past. Eggs haven’t been a problem before. [Aside: Thanks to Amy for educating me all about food allergies when Aly was itty bitty. And another thanks to her for the recent food info.]

The ophthalmologist, now known as Dr. Evil, came to put drops in Alyson’s eyes on Monday. Three kinds and 3-4 drops in each eye. Let’s just say he better watch his back when she’s feeling better. The exam by Dr. Bob, sidekick to Dr. Evil, went well and he didn’t see anything fungal, which is good.

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Bradyn doesn’t want to come up here for his birthday nor for his party. His stress is showing in the form of irritability and a small throw-up session this morning. Just in case he’s actually sick, he can’t come visit until Saturday. Also over the weekend, Grandma Geri is zipping home to check on things there. She’ll be back on Monday afternoon ready to hold down the home fort until we get to leave.

I attended the Yoga class offered on Mondays. My hamstrings are still sore but it’s a great sore. Our teacher, Michelle, is going to come by tomorrow morning and see if Alyson wants to do any stretching here in the room.