February 20: Day +3 Fever Spike & Moving

We had another great night last night.  Chase slept peacefully and around 9:30 this morning, I heard him call William's name, who is not here. Not receiving a response, he started calling for me.  I answered him, and he replied, "Oh, you are here."

Nothing like a few morphine-induced hallucinations in the morning!

I attempted to go back to sleep, which he tolerated for all of five seconds before beckoning me to his bed.  Not for a drink or assistance with going to the bathroom.  No, he wanted me to cuddle up for body warmth.  Yes, it's sweet, but he never gives me enough room and he hogs the pillows.

I noticed he felt pretty warm, and not long afterward, Ann, AKA "Momma Duck" came in and said, "Congratulations, you've spiked a fever."  I'm not shocked and in fact expected this to happen either today or tomorrow.  Thankfully, it's a low-grade fever 38.3 Celsius, which is over 100.  She said he had been hitting right at that number for a good part of the night.

The normal routine for fevers is automatic antibiotics and to take several blood samples to run cultures.  They use a broad spectrum antibiotic to begin with, and if the culture comes back positive they'll adjust it to target the infection.  The cultures usually take 2 - 3 days to grow if an infection is present, but I don't think fungal infections are detected like this.  Don't quote me on that though.

In addition to the fever, his blood pressure was really low.  It started out around 95/45 without a lot of variation.  They initially will treat this by hanging an additional bag of fluid and ramping up the pump to its highest speed to try and raise the blood pressure.  It's called a fluid bolus or a bolus of fluids.  I saw it listed both ways after a quick Google search.  The first bolus did not raise his blood pressure, so Ann started a second one.  In about an hour, he had 2 liters of fluid pumped into him.   The second one achieved the desired effect, so Chase needed no further intervention.  However, he is now pretty puffed up.

I thought that would be the end of our excitement for the day, but I was wrong.  Ann informed me that the air unit for the transplant wing has been having issues and it wasn't keeping the rooms pressurized. All of the rooms on this hall have a positive pressure to prevent unfiltered air from the hall from continuously entering the room.  When this fails for more than 2 hours, all of the BMT patients have to be moved to the old BMT hallway in the regular Aflac area.

Patients in those rooms, who are all usually AML patients like Chase, have to be kept on this floor.  They should also be in pressurized rooms, but BMT patients take precedence in cases like this.  After discharging patients that can go home, AML patients are moved into other rooms, their former rooms are completely disinfected, and then the BMT patients are moved one by one as the rooms are ready.

Any other patient (not BMT, AML) that has to be booted from their room temporarily is either moved into the rooms we were are in (unless the air system completely fails) or they are floated to other floors.  The Aflac nurses follow the patients wherever they are going.

I was hoping they would say that only our bodies and necessary items need to be moved, but everything has to go.  This is a HUGE pain since we keep a lot of canned and dry grocery goods in here, in the refrigerator/freezer not to mention clothes, blankets, and all the bathroom stuff.  I don't want to move all of our food out of the fridge/freezer but it looks like I may have to.  If they admit other patients to this hall, they will need the fridge space.  I have plans to borrow a countertop height fridge, and now wish I had been a bit more proactive.  But only so many things can be done in so much time.  It's an inconvenience, but we'll manage.

8 hours later...
It turns out, we would have had to move out tomorrow (Monday) regardless.  There were already plans to replace the unit that is failing.  Good grief!  All of that whining for nothing :)   But Chase and I did get moved in with help from my mom.  She even brought me a mushroom and swiss Angus burger from McDonalds.  Not my typical choice of meals, but I believe that is probably the first non-frozen or non-boxed/canned thing I have eaten in a few days.  You forget how "old" the other food gets until someone brings you a burger.

Not only did she bring me a burger, but she also ran out to Blockbuster and picked up Date Night for Chase and I.  We packed up a bunch of dirty clothes for her to take back (and wash) so I met her in the lobby with the suitcase when she pulled up to drop off the movie.  Just to show you how comfortable I've grown around here, I was already down to the 1st floor and stepping out of the elevator when I realized I had my bedroom slippers on.  Thankfully, it was after 8pm and the hospital was mostly quiet.

The movie was a nice way to end the evening and Chase even nursed a hot chocolate drink while we watched.  I've been so proud of him!  I miss William a bunch though! I know I'll get to see him soon, but I hate feeling out of balance and like I'm neglecting him.  He's in wonderful hands with my parents, so trust me when I say he's being well fed and well taken care of, but it's still not the same.

God Bless!!