2005 Journal Entries

Thanks to you all for all your e-mail messages and phone calls. Archie, John and I so appreciate your kindness and concern. We’re very fortunate to have such caring friends and family.

Archie had a better today than he did yesterday. He was able to rest comfortably for most of the day, something he’s been unable to do all week. Archie’s temperature has subsided and he’s regained a little of his characteristic fight. He’s eager to drink Pedialyte now, and the doctors are reducing his i.v. fluids so that he’ll drink more fluids by mouth. We really enjoyed about an hour this afternoon during which time Archie was more himself than he’s been for awhile. We had him propped up on a pillow as he watched some sort of children’s program with lots of music and color, waving one of his favorite toys in the air. He performed for us then, too, answering all of our questions: “Archie, how does Donald Duck sound?”; “What do Bond and Jinx say?”; “Archie, where’s your nose, feet, elbow, hair…?”; “Can you say ‘banana’?”

The results of the flow cytometry (the slide of Archie’s blood that was sent away yesterday for a closer reading) came back around lunchtime. The study seems to imply that Archie is having the same sort of leukemoid reaction he had in October of 2003 when he was born. The white blood cell, platelet and blast counts are higher now than they were then, but the percentages of each cell are identical from study to study. This is good news. Archie’s doctor was obviously relieved when he shared the study results with us. John and I still consented to go forward with the bone marrow aspiration, though, so that we can definitively determine what’s going on with Archie’s blood. At worst the aspiration will indicate that Archie has leukemia. At best the aspiration will serve as a bench mark against which Archie’s blood counts can be measured in the future.

But Archie, of course, had different plans. The doctors were unable to proceed with the aspiration because Archie’s oxygen saturation was in the 80s (the rate had to be in the 90s or the intensivist wouldn’t allow Archie to be sedated for the procedure). “You’re saying this child’s lesion has been fixed?” the doctor kept asking me. I reminded them then that Archie had a cough and congestion all week, and that I’d been trying to get someone to do something for it but everyone ignored my requests for help. I told them again that I’ve had the same respiratory issues for over two weeks and that my symptoms are painful and difficult to deal with. The doctors again reviewed Archie’s chest x-ray from yesterday and this time felt that there were a few striations that seemed to indicate Archie has a slight case of pneumonia. They took another chest x-ray which confirmed their diagnosis. Archie is receiving a new antibiotic right now to treat the infection, and is on two liters of oxygen to help maintain his sats. He’s also receiving a drug to treat his increased uric acid levels, a byproduct of his elevated white blood cell counts.

We also found out that the urine culture the doctors took yesterday confirmed that Archie’s urinary tract infection is being caused by E Coli bacteria. This is good news, too, because this specific bacteria causes high fevers and also can cause hematocrit and hemoglobin levels to fluctuate drastically.

The bone marrow aspiration is now tentatively scheduled for Monday. We hope Archie will continue to improve over the weekend. We expect him to be in the hospital at least until Monday, but probably longer than that. Hopefully, though, we’ll be able to bring Archie home sometime next week.

Thank you again for your care and concern. We really appreciate it and hope to e-mail or call each of you individually soon.