Day 24: grey, grey, gloomy day

Hello bloggers,

We're still in a holding pattern, today. Braxton is very low energy and not eating. Symptoms that will change as his neutrafil count rises. Yesterday's blood work had Braxton's white cells rising to 400 from <100. This morning they are at 900! Very good and quick improvement. His neutrfils, however, are not moving at all yet. Neutrfils are the germ fighting white cells. I've been told that they rise slower than the white cells but need to show an upwardly rising pattern in order for Braxton to go home. He is still holding onto a fever too. He goes back and forth between 100.6 and 101.2. He needs to be below 100.5 for 24 hours (or so) before the docs will let Braxton come home. We've been watching alot of sports (Go Kansas!) and Spongebob (what do you get when you cross Spongebob with Albert Einstein? Spongebob Smartiepants :) ) I tried to get Brax to roam the hospital with me but he just doesn't have the energy. We are enjoying the river view from our hospital window, though. Both yesterday morning and this morning Brax and I sat on the window seat and watched 2 rowing teams practicing. Those long skinny boats filled with about 12 guys and a small boat in between with the guy who yells "row!" are fun to watch. They start at one end of the river and race about 1/2 a mile down and then coast back, get ito position and race again. They raced for about 2 hours both days. Not quite like the rowing machine at the Y!

As I write Braxton has fallen asleep in front of the Twin's game. They're down 2-0 so I won't bother waking him up. He doesn't get poked and prodded too much during the daytime ours so he can nap without being disturbed. David is planning to bring the girls to visit and maybe get Brax to play Monopoly later.


-posted by Beth