febrile neutropenia

Jo and I may have pushed our luck on Saturday night. Ethan had had a good week at home and we were confident about going out on saturday night (to the 5oth anniversary ball for the Narre Warren football club) without any problems.  10 minutes after we left, we received a call from Jackie (nurse friend looking after Ethan), temperature was up. She had called the hospital already and they said to send him in. We said to monitor him closely for a bit longer first. Half an hour later, Ethan's temperature was even higher, so Jackie took him to Monash for us. About 2 hours later we received another call saying his oncologist wanted him at the childrens hospital. This was a precaution in case the infection was heart related (endocarditis). Time to leave. Kristen picked us up and drove us to Monash. Jo had downed a bottle of chardonnay before we left so she had the ride in the ambulance with Ethan, while I drove to the RCH. A long wait in emergency, before finally being taken upstairs to 6 east (oncology/haematology). Ethan was still hot and they started anti's, but he was tired and went straight to sleep. We eventually got home to Narre at about 4am.

Ethan's temperature continued throughout sunday and today (39-40). His blood counts were low, this was expected after his last full week of chemo. Blood is taken quite often now to see if the neutrophils (white blood cells) count starts to increase again.

Ethan had a cardiac review this morning and an echocardiogram this afternoon. No problems found. His temperature was coming down this evening and he had sparked up again. We took him back to Monash where he is having more antibiotics, continuous naso feeds and some oxygen. He settled down well.