Posted by Becky
On Sunday, Leif started running a fever. Our friends Mike and Carol were visiting, so Mike took Leif in to the Waldo County ER Sunday evening, and they admitted him with a temperature of 103. It stayed up there until early Monday morning, when it started coming down, and is now back to normal. His pulse was high and his blood pressure low, and those are doing better now as well, although not quite normal.
There is some reason to believe he has a blood infection; at any rate, he's been getting lots of antibiotics and fluids, and he is feeling better. They're keeping him in the ICU at Waldo because he's neutropenic (low white blood cells), and at Waldo, neutropenic patients stay in the ICU. It's nice and quiet here, too.
On Sunday and Monday, Leif got CT scans to check for brain trouble (since his platelet count is low), lung trouble, and trouble with his abscess site, and that all came back OK. His abscess incsision continues to heal well. They could have coordinated better and taken one CT scan to check for all of that at once, but they didn't. One of his blood cultures is growing gram-positive bacteria, which would indicate a blood infection, but it was just one culture, so it could be due to contamination. They are going to do some more cultures today, and try to isolate whether the infection is in his port, whether he really has one at all, etc.
Yesterday his blood counts looked bad, and he got 4 units of blood and 2 of platelets. There are a number of reasons they were so low; it could be due to his disease, spleen, sepsis, or bone marrow suppression. He's got lots of petechiae (the little blood spots caused by leaking capillaries).
He has some large nodes in his abdomen; Dr. Connelly doesn't recall whether that was the case before.
When he came in, he was somewhat dehydrated, so he's been getting a lot of fluids. They will continue those for at least one more day.
He also was having back muscle spasms since Sunday. Those could have been triggered because he slept on a different bed at the camp; usually he sleeps on a futon, and the softer bed might have caused a problem. At any rate, they were bad enough that they kept him from being able to draw breath; fortunately, Mike, who has been staying at the hospital with Leif, was able to release them when they happened. They've been happening less as the days have worn on. The doctors say they might be able to treat them with muscle relaxants. He can't get any NSAIDs (like Flexeril) at the moment, because he's been dehydrated and they don't want to stress his kidneys.
He'll be here at Waldo County Hospital for at least another 24 hours, then they'll reevaluate how he's doing, and he might be able to go home with oral antibiotics.
I apologize for not getting this posted earlier; Leif changed his blog password, and while he gave me the new password, he has idiosyncratic spelling habits and I didn't copy it down correctly. Mike and Carol left for home this morning; it was so great to have them here. I'll be hanging out with Leif during the day today. He says he's feeling pretty vague and plans to rest today, so the best way to contact us is probably by email.
On Sunday, Leif started running a fever. Our friends Mike and Carol were visiting, so Mike took Leif in to the Waldo County ER Sunday evening, and they admitted him with a temperature of 103. It stayed up there until early Monday morning, when it started coming down, and is now back to normal. His pulse was high and his blood pressure low, and those are doing better now as well, although not quite normal.
There is some reason to believe he has a blood infection; at any rate, he's been getting lots of antibiotics and fluids, and he is feeling better. They're keeping him in the ICU at Waldo because he's neutropenic (low white blood cells), and at Waldo, neutropenic patients stay in the ICU. It's nice and quiet here, too.
On Sunday and Monday, Leif got CT scans to check for brain trouble (since his platelet count is low), lung trouble, and trouble with his abscess site, and that all came back OK. His abscess incsision continues to heal well. They could have coordinated better and taken one CT scan to check for all of that at once, but they didn't. One of his blood cultures is growing gram-positive bacteria, which would indicate a blood infection, but it was just one culture, so it could be due to contamination. They are going to do some more cultures today, and try to isolate whether the infection is in his port, whether he really has one at all, etc.
Yesterday his blood counts looked bad, and he got 4 units of blood and 2 of platelets. There are a number of reasons they were so low; it could be due to his disease, spleen, sepsis, or bone marrow suppression. He's got lots of petechiae (the little blood spots caused by leaking capillaries).
He has some large nodes in his abdomen; Dr. Connelly doesn't recall whether that was the case before.
When he came in, he was somewhat dehydrated, so he's been getting a lot of fluids. They will continue those for at least one more day.
He also was having back muscle spasms since Sunday. Those could have been triggered because he slept on a different bed at the camp; usually he sleeps on a futon, and the softer bed might have caused a problem. At any rate, they were bad enough that they kept him from being able to draw breath; fortunately, Mike, who has been staying at the hospital with Leif, was able to release them when they happened. They've been happening less as the days have worn on. The doctors say they might be able to treat them with muscle relaxants. He can't get any NSAIDs (like Flexeril) at the moment, because he's been dehydrated and they don't want to stress his kidneys.
He'll be here at Waldo County Hospital for at least another 24 hours, then they'll reevaluate how he's doing, and he might be able to go home with oral antibiotics.
I apologize for not getting this posted earlier; Leif changed his blog password, and while he gave me the new password, he has idiosyncratic spelling habits and I didn't copy it down correctly. Mike and Carol left for home this morning; it was so great to have them here. I'll be hanging out with Leif during the day today. He says he's feeling pretty vague and plans to rest today, so the best way to contact us is probably by email.
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