Normal hospital day

Normal hospital day. Arrived promptly at 11am for our 'appointment'. I think actually it's just a random time they give you to make sure you're at the hospital on the day, but bears no resemblance to the time you actually get seen! Anyway, usual routine, we sat for an hour waiting until Joshua had his Obs done at 12:00 noon. Good news is that Joshua is still putting on weight (he's far from heavy) and I am still trying to pour calories into him. Who knew it could be as hard to put on weight as it is to lose it! The aim of this is to avoid the dreaded naso gastric tube which many of the patients have. If you lose more than 10% of your starting weight you get one of these delights to provide nutritional support. Having had one of these for two days in Cairns (but for different reasons) Joshua is keen to avoid the experience again. Hence all the feeding!

Another hour and 20 minutes later we finally got seen. Joshua had his bloods taken and the dressing changed on his central line. So close but still so far from leaving the hospital, we had to wait another 1 hour and 20 minutes for the blood results. By this time we were banging our heads against the wall (obviously not literally, that would have been weird and probably required treatment on another floor). Finally at 3:00pm we got the all clear to go home. Good job really as I had already booked our homeward transport for 3:15pm.

For those of you who like the medical details, bloods were as follows:

Tuesday: Haemoglobin: 106, Platelets: 352, White cell count: 2.7, Neutrophils: 2.24
Friday: Haemoglobin: 97, Platelets: 247, White cell count: 0.6, Neutrophils: 0.1

Rubbish for most people, but normal for Joshua under the circumstances and given the stage he is at in his chemo cycle. What it means is that his immune system isn't up to much and he is at high risk of infection. Please pray that he stays infection free.

We got back to a severe storm warning, including hail. Tomorrow the forecast is for 34 degrees C and sunny.