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