Good news!!

Hi Everyone,

The blood cultures drawn at 10 am this morning, came back with a white blood cell count of 1000!!! Hemoglobin and platelets were up, too! I waited to see what the next labs were going to be before posting anything. The last count was done on blood drawn at 4 pm with a white blood cell count of 700. This is 4 consecutive counts of 500 or greater! We are all so excited. We did not see the hematologist today, so we are anxious to see if the cells that are coming back are normal, healthly cells. Hopefully we'll hear this news tomorrow morning. As for other things, Eric is pretty much the same on ventilator settings. He did not require dialysis today. They said that his blood urea nitrogen (BUN) number was high, but the other numbers that they watch were not. So they are assuming that his BUN was unnaturally high for other another reason (for example, if blood is absorbed in the GI track, it can lead to this). He is starting to look more and more like Eric. A lot of the swelling has gone down, and his bruises are starting to clear up. (He had some pretty awful looking bruises on his arms from all of the fluid he was given combined with the lack of movement while sedated.) All in all, we had a pretty good day! Please keep praying for a remission and that no leukemia cells show up in the blood. The hematologist mentioned yesterday that it would not be good at all if the leukemia comes back while he is in this condition. His body is pretty weak right now, and we need to give him time to heal.

Until tomorrow!
Love,
Melissa