Hi Everyone,

It's been another wonderfully calm morning here at the hospital. He got a lot of good rest yesterday and last night, too! We turned on the Purdue basketball game (yes, we won!!) because we thought he'd like hearing it. It seemed to work. The nurse noticed that he seemed more relaxed with the more "normal" noises in the room. We're still waiting to hear from all of the doctors, but the ones that have stopped by don't have much to say (another good thing). He's slowly going in the right direction. He tested positive for yeast from blood drawn on the 29th. It is still too early to tell what kind of yeast, but we're hoping it is just some residual candida from the infection he had before. All other cultures from the last few days are still negative, but that doesn't mean something can't grow there. The fact that they are taking this long to grow is very promising, though. Even if something shows up, it means that there is very little of it in the blood.

They just bumped his oxygen down to 65% O2. The nurse was saying that the doctors are being very careful with him to make sure his lungs don't respond badly. Also, his kidneys are still producing waste (despite the dialysis machine), which is another good sign that they are still working to some extent.

Also, another very minor detail I noticed on New Year's Eve was that Eric started to shed a bit more. Yes, he's starting to lose his hair. He still has quite a bit left, but I thought he'd want to know when it started happening when he wakes up. He sure is going to have a lot to read at that point in time! I think he'll look good bald, though. :)

The doctors are starting to really look at the white blood cell counts that are coming back from his blood samples. They are still really low (anywhere between 200 and 400), but hopefully they'll start increasing soon. This will indicate that his bone marrow is starting to work again, and we can stop worrying about him getting more infections. The hemotologist said that the average time for bone marrow to start functioning is 3 weeks after the first dose of chemo. That will be this coming Monday. However, they've seen it take up to 6 weeks, and with the severe infections he has had, they are expecting it to take a little longer than normal. We can still hope and pray, though. We'll be sure to keep you updated if his white blood cells start inching up!

Love,
Melissa

Calm new year

Hi everyone,

Happy New Year!

We've had a calm 24 hours. Eric continues to do well on the dialysis and breathing support. They continue to reduce the breathing support by small amounts. The dialysis is taking more and more fluid out making Eric look normal again. Everyone got a good nights sleep last night.

The doctors this morning thought things looked good and the numbers were going in the right direction. We are hoping this time of rest will help Eric start to recover.

Love,
Sara

Successful Convert to Sinus Rhythm

Eric's heart got shocked today around 2:30 and everything went fine. His EKG now shows a small P wave indicating that the atria are contracting. He is still on the heart medicine to keep his heart rate low and in the normal sinus rhythm. The dialysis continues to clean Eric's blood and is starting to remove some excess fluid. They are going slowly -- only 50 ml per hour -- to make sure that his blood pressure does not drop. Little steps at a time! He has about 20 liters to lose, so it will take a while.

Thanks to everyone for the supportive comments and cards. Keep praying that Eric's body gets a nice break so he can have some time to recover from all of this excitement. (It'll give ALL of us a little time to recover from all of this excitement.)

Love,
Melissa

Calm after the excitement

Hi all,

During the afternoon yesterday Eric started to have irregular heart beats. They call it atrial fibrillation, aFib for short. In atrial fibrillation, the regular electrical wave in the heart does not occur in the upper chambers of the heart.

For more info on aFib.
http://www.heartpoint.com/afib-tellme.html

The doctors aren't overly concerned with the aFib, because they see it frequently in ICU patients from all the strain the body is going through. Eric has no other heart issues, so they don't believe this will be anything permanent.

Then, we had some excitement around 10pm last night. The hematologist warned us the day before to watch for Eric's heart rate to jump extremely high while his blood pressure dropped. This would be a sign that his heart is pumping blood really hard because the pressure was not being maintained in his veins. This could mean a fatal bleed internally, because it can't be stopped. My dad kept comparing it to a leak in a hydraulic system. So, around 10pm Eric's heart rate jumped from ~85 to ~125 and his blood pressure dropped from 121/75 to 88/30. The night doctor was quick to respond giving him medicine to raise his blood pressure and lower his heart rate. The medicine worked very quickly, but this was one of the scariest hours of Eric's hospital stay. I can't even describe the helplessness we all felt.

During the night they were able to wean Eric off the blood pressure medicine, believing the drop in blood pressure was from the aFib condition. His body is now maintaining normal blood pressure on its own. His heart is still in aFib, so they are keeping him on the heart rate medicine. The doctor last night said that aFib will usually correct itself in 24-48 hours. We can't wait for that to happen.

Also, on the positive side, the dialysis is really working for Eric. This morning's lab results showed Eric's Blood Urea Nitrogen (BUN) and Creatinine (the two measures that tell us how Eric's kidneys are working) showed reduced levels. The kidney doctor this morning said the dialysis was really helping Eric.

Explanation on Measures of Kidney Function
http://www.lifeoptions.org/kidneyinfo/labvalues.php

So overall positive progress overnight after the scare...it will be a slow road to recovery, but as long as we keep moving in the right direction we are happy.

Love,
Sara

Dialysis and new drugs

Hi everyone,

Eric looks to have stopped (or slowed down considerably) the bleeding into his stomach and lungs. His blood counts (red blood cells and platelets) are holding. The numbers to indicate how his kidneys are functioning continue to rise, meaning Eric's kidneys are not filtering everything out of his blood. So, Eric started dialysis tonight to help his kidneys clean up his blood. We are very hopefully that this will help the rest of his body repair.

Eric continues to need a lot of breathing support. They currently have him set at 90% oxygen and 20 PEEP. The doctor tonight reinserted an artery line to take frequent blood gas numbers.

Our hematologists is on vacation for a couple weeks, so we have a new one today. The switch made us nervous, but after talking to the new hematologist we feel comfortable with him.

The new hematologist is going to start Eric on new medicine that will kick start his bone marrow into producing blood again. On average, after chemo treatment, a person's bone marrow doesn't start to produce blood until 3 weeks after the chemo started. This new medicine will start his marrow producing blood sooner, with the hope that his own fresh blood will help heal his body.

Eric's still fighting the good fight.

Love,
Sara

Another day

Hi - Eric made it through the night. (As of 7:45AM ET).

Eric is needing much breathing support, but at least he didn't seem worse this morning.

So starts another day. Thanks to God for keeping him through the night! Thanks to all of you for your thoughts and prayers.

- Kathy

Turn for the worse

Hi all,
Eric has taken a turn for the worse. He is experiencing bleeding into his stomach and into his lungs. The hemotologist, who was more positive yesterday, says we should probably stay in the hospital tonight. He can't predict if Eric will pull through this or succumb to it.

We are very hopeful that Eric will fight this and pull through. He is young, strong, and has too much to live for to let this take him down.

Pray.

Love,
Sara

Several Rough Days

His lungs continued to get worse last night. Right now, he is requiring full support from the ventilator (100% O2, 15 PEEP, 30 breathes per min) and his oxygen saturation is ok. It just gets scary when he gets agitated and his oxygen saturation goes down, because they can't go any higher with their ventilator settings. They are thinking about switching around his medicines again to help speed the recovery of his lungs, but the only option left has bad side affects for the kidneys. We just really need him to be breathing better. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

Love,
Melissa

Tough days

Hi everyone,
Sorry we haven't posted in a couple days. Eric's had a rough 3 days, which translates to a rough 3 days for his bedside team too.

Eric has been receiving red blood cells and platelets the past couple days. There haven't been any additional problems with the blood transfusions, which is good.

We aren't sure if the blood clot is still in Eric's left arm. The doctors haven't ordered a second Doppler ultrasound to check on the clot. I imagine this is because there is really nothing they can do to treat it. We were told that a clot in the arm is better than a clot in his leg, because clot sizes in arms are generally smaller.

Eric is still on the ventilator. He seems to bounce around needing a lot to a little breathing support. He is currently at 100% oxygen support and a PEEP of 15, which is a lot of support.

The doctors are now worried about Eric's kidneys. There are two numbers they look at in the lab tests. Eric's numbers have jumped up twice in the wrong direction since yesterday. This is now a new concern for us. We aren't sure if there is a treatment they can do to help his kidneys.

Eric's hematologist was back in the hospital on Monday, and we truly missed him over the weekend. The critical care team (basically the doctors that staff the ICU) had some very scary things to say to us on Fri, Sat and Sun. They were indicating to be prepared for the worst, including questioning how long do we want to fight.......which was shocking yesterday.

Later in the day yesterday, we saw Eric's hematologist. We explained what we were being told by the critical care team, and the hematologist reassured us that Eric is right on track. The hematologists said Eric's current condition is exactly what is expected of a Leukemia patient. We have completely wiped out his immune system, white blood cells. We had to do this to kill off the cancerous cells. With no immune system, Eric can't fight off basic bacteria and fungi. The hematologist had a conference with the critical care doctor to clarify Eric's progression and treatment.

The hematologist called in a couple different specialists; an opthamalogist, an infectous disease doctor, a kidney doctor, and heart doctor. These specialists had some treatments that will help Eric.

On a positive note, Eric's temperature continues to drop. He is currently at 99 degree F.

We are hoping Eric makes progress on his breathing an his kidneys today.

Love,
Sara