Posted by Becky
Two visits today, from the pulmonologist who's here today and Leif's oncologist.
Leif is off supplemental oxygen as long as he's awake; he needs to check his oxygen level before going to sleep, and if it's low-ish, he'll get extra for when his breathing slows down. His temperature remains normal, and his heart rate continues to improve. Yesterday's chest xray is slightly better than the previous one, though still significantly abnormal. Leif reports that he's able to take increasingly deep breaths before hitting the point that makes him cough. He's continuing to take breaths up to that point, deepening his breathing as he can. The vision in his left eye is improving.
The blood cultures that have come back so far are all negative, so they still don't know what he has. They've ruled out pneumocystis.
His doctors have checked into the hallucinations he's been having, and changed his voriconazole from IV to pills, which have a lower incidence of these effects. The hallucinations don't particularly bother Leif since they are expected to go away when he stops taking the voriconazole - i.e. the effects aren't permanent. And really, when you're stuck in a beige room for a week or two, unable to read, why not take an hallucinogen to pass the time?
His neutrophil count is up from 0.5, to 0.7; just creeping up, but going in the right direction. He'll be on prednisone for a couple of weeks of gradually decreasing doses.
The amount of time Leif needs to remain in the hospital depends on what antibiotics the infectious disease specialist thinks he needs to stay on, for how long, and of course how he continues to recover. After he's completely off antibiotics for one week with no fevers, he'll get some gentle chemotherapy to keep the lymphoma down, and maybe some more chemo 3 weeks later, to give him time to build up his strength and be healthy enough to get a stem cell transplant.
Two visits today, from the pulmonologist who's here today and Leif's oncologist.
Leif is off supplemental oxygen as long as he's awake; he needs to check his oxygen level before going to sleep, and if it's low-ish, he'll get extra for when his breathing slows down. His temperature remains normal, and his heart rate continues to improve. Yesterday's chest xray is slightly better than the previous one, though still significantly abnormal. Leif reports that he's able to take increasingly deep breaths before hitting the point that makes him cough. He's continuing to take breaths up to that point, deepening his breathing as he can. The vision in his left eye is improving.
The blood cultures that have come back so far are all negative, so they still don't know what he has. They've ruled out pneumocystis.
His doctors have checked into the hallucinations he's been having, and changed his voriconazole from IV to pills, which have a lower incidence of these effects. The hallucinations don't particularly bother Leif since they are expected to go away when he stops taking the voriconazole - i.e. the effects aren't permanent. And really, when you're stuck in a beige room for a week or two, unable to read, why not take an hallucinogen to pass the time?
His neutrophil count is up from 0.5, to 0.7; just creeping up, but going in the right direction. He'll be on prednisone for a couple of weeks of gradually decreasing doses.
The amount of time Leif needs to remain in the hospital depends on what antibiotics the infectious disease specialist thinks he needs to stay on, for how long, and of course how he continues to recover. After he's completely off antibiotics for one week with no fevers, he'll get some gentle chemotherapy to keep the lymphoma down, and maybe some more chemo 3 weeks later, to give him time to build up his strength and be healthy enough to get a stem cell transplant.
No comments:
Post a Comment