Update from Keith: July 4th, 2008

Happy 4th to all of the blog readers. Unfortunately, Taylor will be celebrating from the hospital. Last night we went out and watched the Altadena Country Club's fireworks show at 9:30. When we came home, T just didn't seem right to Kris and so Kris took her temperature. Sure enough, it was 38.5 (somewhere north of 101 Fahrenheit). Thus, we summoned Kris's mom to come over and watch Charlie and we took Taylor down to the hospital at about 11:30 last night.

Kris was smart about it. No one wants to get stuck in the Emergency Department there for the entire night. Thus, when Kris called the Hem/Onc doctor on call, she insisted that they admit us directly into a bed, instead of making us go through the ED which is the usual procedure.

It was a scramble to find a bed. 4W was essentially full last night. They found a bed for Taylor in the BMT (Bone Marrow Transplant) "cave" that hides surreptitiously between rooms on 4W. I call it a cave because it is surprisingly big. There are three bed rooms and a nursing station that has 2 nurses at all times. These beds are for kids who have either undergone a BMT or will do so soon. Either way, the kids have no ability to make white blood cells so to get in the cave everyone has to step on sticky paper (to pull the germs off) and then gown and mask up after scrubbing with surgical sponges and soap. I've got a cold, so I can't even think of going back there.

The beds in the cave are behind plastic bubbles that have an arm sheath and gloves coming out of it. That way the nurse can stand on one side of the bubble, put her arms into the sheath and gloves and treat the patients without touching them or bringing any germs to them. It's a little overkill for T's condition but then again her white blood cell count was less than 0.1 last night so maybe she needs that.

This is the earliest following chemo that I can remember T being hospitalized (except, of course, those long early months when she was in the hospital virtually all of the time). Our guess is she won't be released until Tuesday which is when her counts start going back up. We actually expected her to need hospitalization this weekend (as she does nearly every time following chemo), but we didn't plan on it starting this early.

Oh well. At least she saw fireworks last night.