Note: This is the second update I made to Addison's CarePages site. She had been diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia three days prior and we were quickly becoming versed in hospital lingo. Even today I am still in awe of the lengths the doctors and nurses in the ICU at Children's Hospital went to, to save our sweet girl. At the time I wrote that I "only tend to focus on the good." I need to do that a little bit more now. There is good in my life. Every day, in fact. It just isn't as good without her.
Posted Mar 23, 2012 12:42pm
Scott and I had the opportunity to sit in on formal rounds this morning. We are constantly amazed at the sense of teamwork at this hospital. These doctors and nurses are true problem solvers who work together for the greatest good of the patient and we are so thankful for that. Since yesterday they located a special bed that allows Addison to be elevated. This helps with the blood flow issues to her legs. But before they located the bed, they tossed around different options to help her, one of which was finding three extra mattresses from around the hospital to help get her further off the ground. Luckily we didn't have to do that because the bed came in time. Still, their ingenious efforts are at work. In order for the ventilator to work properly, it also had to be elevated. So today I look at a ventilator resting atop a child's table (stolen from some corner of the hospital, no doubt). Problem solvers, I tell ya.
So about what they said (and I only tend to focus on the good):
Good news: Her white blood cell count has gone from 200,000 to 89,000. That means the chemo is working. Her lactate (sp?) has dropped from 20 to 3.something. A normal level is 2.5, I believe. So that's good.
Not so good news: We still have to keep an eye on the leg that is hooked up to bypass. It has swelled quite a bit and there's concern about proper blood flow. However, during rounds, nurses indicated that the leg had improved after they repositioned her and placed another pillow under it. So that's a move in the right direction.
How scary for you and your husband....at least I was in the medical field when Dimitri got AML so I knew all the terminology and what was happening. Sometimes it was a blessing and sometimes a curse.
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