Day + 35 - Anything but routine

Yesterday’s short visit to the clinic has turned into a rather long trip from home. At least for Courtney anyway. After checking her lab results and seeing her platelets drop significantly, and seeing that her nausea was getting worse instead of better, they decided to admit her back into the hospital to run some tests. Dr. V said there was a chance that her symptoms and lab results could be due to Graft Versus Host Disease (GVHD). So, they wanted her to go to the hospital for a CT scan of her upper abdomen, where she’s been feeling pain the past couple of weeks, and an endoscopy to check her upper GI tract for lesions and to perform a biopsy to check for GVHD.

Her latests lab results:

Date	Platelets	RBC	HGB	HCT	WBC
1/10	65000	3.22	10.4	29.5	5.0
1/15	25000	2.58	8.2	23.8	5.5
1/16	23000	2.18	6.9	20.4	3.7

This morning Dr. V came in and shed some light on her suspicions. Apparently, the GVHD manifests itself in many ways and could be causing her to feel the way she’s been feeling lately – more nauseous and fatigued than before. She also said the drop in lab counts and the increase in nausea could be due to the Foscarnet. I asked why, if she’s been on the Foscarnet since she left the hospital, would her counts suddenly drop. She said that it can have a cumulative affect and cause symptoms and side effects after a couple weeks of being on the medication.

Her plan was to have the Esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) (officially the longest word I’ve ever written or used), today and start her on a relatively low dose of steroid (prednisone) pending the results of GVHD that could take 2-3 days. Unfortunately, the doctor overseeing the procedure didn’t want to do it because her hemoglobin was too low. He said she needed to get blood beforehand. Even more unfortunate was the fact that there was no way to get blood in time to still be able to get the EGD done today. The GI doctor who visited her this morning said if it was him he would have done it today regardless. This is really frustrating because Dr. V. said that she expects Courtney to be feeling better almost immediately after getting the steroid. But now we have to wait another day before starting it.

So, after a long morning of waiting to find out when the EGD would be (she couldn’t eat until after the procedure) we finally got word that it wouldn’t actually be done today and she could eat. The rest of the day went pretty smooth as she had a nice long visit with her friend, Melissa, and had a routine CT scan. No results yet.

She did finally get her two units of blood this evening, so all should be clear for the EGD tomorrow morning. We’re hoping that if everything is good tomorrow and she’s feeling up to it, that Courtney could go back home tomorrow. Otherwise, she may be here for one more night.

We’re just hoping and praying that they find some answers and get her turned around in the right direction towards recovery. She’s really tired of feeling nausea and pain, especially when they prevent her from getting out of bed. So, while the visit to the doctor didn’t quite go as expected, we know that she’s back in the hospital for a good reason – to help get her back to her routine as quickly as possible.

Oh, one more thing. Aidan made a dramatic recovery at about 9:00 yesterday morning. When we left for the clinic at 8:45 he still felt warm and looked a little lethargic. Half way to the clinic my mom called to tell us that he was downstairs (he hadn't come down once on Monday) begging for food and acting as if he'd never been sick at all. He's been himself ever since. Thanks again for the prayers.