Today: T+9

So since my post yesterday there have been a few changes…….

Seth was on the CPAP machine again for 12 hours over night as part of the SCARF research.

He had the most settled night he has had in a while, and today has been maintaining his oxygen level WITHOUT the need for additional oxygen! He has been breathing a lot easier and his chest sounds better. Hooray! Towards the end of the day he did start to breathe a bit harder and needed additional oxygen when asleep. But its an improvement.

His cheeky little character is also coming back a bit and we sat on the floor to play paw patrol again today, although he again tired very quickly. He is just so determined not to be sick!

His hands remain sore but we are now only going to change the dressing every other day, and they have doubled the amount of pain relief he gets when he has a bolus. So that should help him a little with the pain. In addition he has been referred back to the tissue viability team who will know how best to dress the hands and ensure he is getting pain relief.

Fluid wise Seth is still retaining fluids, his genitals are less swollen, but he is puffy on his face and legs, and his belly is very distended at the moment. The doctors are continuing to monitor this closely and treating it with diuretics when necessary as well as giving him the minimal amount of fluid.

Being on the intensive care ward is stressful for Nik and I, and is creating some frustration and conflicting feeling (it may be that we are crazy BMT parents scared at leaving our safe little bubble!). Seth is doing well with the CPAP support and it seems to be helping him to improve. But we also feel like we may be compromising his safety in terms of infection. The nursing staff on intensive care are not BMT nurses and so work differently and have a different understanding to isolation nursing. So having Seth on the ward is a learning curve for them, but he is still not receiving the protective care he would receive on his normal ward. The strict isolation rules seem to not apply as much here, but if he needs it he needs it right? This may be fine and not an issue, but 9 days post transplant Seth is as vulnerable as it gets and we are worried.

Tomorrow we are going to speak with the relevant people to confirm what is absolutely necessary to protect Seth so that we can ensure that is happening. It may be that we are more cautious than needs be and he is already getting the level of protective nursing that he requires. At the minute Nik and I are feeling more stressed than we have throughout this process so we need to clarify and understand and then consider our options. As removing him from the research and back to his ward may be detrimental to his breathing and could lead him to need to be in intensive care, which would not change anything anyway.

Now….about that magic…….

It looks like engraftment has begun, he has some lymphocyte numbers coming up in his blood. At the moment that means nothing as they need to check further to see what is going on. But hopefully it is the sign that the magic is home and beginning to settle. This is good – it what he needs, but it may cause him to go backwards again before he starts improving. The new cells might go to all the areas we have problems at the moment and cause further inflammation trying to fix things.

So today was a good day…..tomorrow who knows were still taking it day by day.