He Feels Awful
After pushing through the fairly mild effects of the chemotherapy last week, Ethen was beginning to show signs of improvement over the weekend. This was short-lived. On Sunday, Ethen's white blood cell counts began to show signs of decline, but on Monday his counts plummeted. Being neutropenic has been described to us as the feeling you get when you have a severe case of the flu. But even when a non-immunocompromised person gets a severe case of the flu, they still have neutrophils, which help to fight the flu. Ethen has none to speak of. He feels awful. He threw up 5 ounces on Monday night (his entire tube feed) and various amounts since then. Over the past 36–48 hours Ethen has hardly moved. He's periodically opened his eyes, almost as if to ask me and Christie why he feels like this. It reminds me of how he seemed to feel during the first round of chemotherapy when he dealt with so many complications. The difference now is that the medical team expects patients who go through this bone marrow transplant regimen to feel like Ethen does. Thankfully we seem to have gotten most of the pain under control—pain from esophageal sores, which keep Ethen from swallowing; bone pain from the medicine he's received to help his stem cells engraft and begin blood cell production; and general malaise. It's sad.
Please pray that Ethen's stem cells will engraft and begin to produce blood cells. Pray for the older two as this hospitalization grows in length. They've been tough, but it's taking its toll on them, especially Mikayla. Pray they know our love and can in some sense understand what's going on. Pray we have energy as we try to split our time so as to give the older two our time. It's difficult to sit pinned to the bed beneath Ethen for an entire day, and then to have energy to give to the big kids—not to mention the other responsibilities that weigh on us.
Please pray that Ethen's stem cells will engraft and begin to produce blood cells. Pray for the older two as this hospitalization grows in length. They've been tough, but it's taking its toll on them, especially Mikayla. Pray they know our love and can in some sense understand what's going on. Pray we have energy as we try to split our time so as to give the older two our time. It's difficult to sit pinned to the bed beneath Ethen for an entire day, and then to have energy to give to the big kids—not to mention the other responsibilities that weigh on us.
This breaks my heart. I wish I could take his suffering away. I would gladly take it upon myself if it would make him healthy again. I'd like to share something a friend of mine told me when she was struggling with feeling inadequate having to be there for her son who had neuroblastoma and her daughter at home. She said, " my hope is that when she gets older she will look back and say, 'yes I had to take a back seat while my brother was sick, but looking back now I take comfort knowing they did every single thing possible to save his life, and I know they would have done the same for me.'" as for you guys and sweet E, we are consistently on our knees.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Wendy. We agree with your friend. We hope this is soon a memory and that all our kids know how strong our love for them is.
DeleteI can't imagne how hard this is. Praying that there is comfort in knowing that the doctors understand what is going on and that this is expected though hard. Praying for you both, the kids at home, and Ethan.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Christina.
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