“Itchy there”
Praise God, for the last two days Jeremy has been fever free and had a good appetite.
The rash under his dressing got worse and spread beyond the dressing. The doctors and nurses decided that it got bad enough to just change the dressing on Sunday since Jeremy was scheduled to have it changed on Tuesday anyway. The nurse used a different cleaning solution this time, thinking that it may be an allergic reaction to one they had used previously. They’re keeping an eye on it for now. If it does not get any worse, they’ll leave it alone. Otherwise, they believe it may be a reaction to the tape used for the dressing.
After the dressing change, the rash started getting really itchy. Jeremy wanted to scratch, but we couldn’t let him. Because his immune system is so compromised, scratching could lead to a break in the skin, which could lead to infection. It’s been really hard for him and he’s been asking for prayer for his “itchy.”
In regards to a medical report, there wasn’t much else in the last two days. His counts are still low and he needed a blood transfusion yesterday morning. His neutrophil count is essentially zero, so he’s still at high risk for infection.
We noticed another side effect of the chemo starting to appear: hair loss. It doesn’t seem to be dramatic hair loss at the moment, but we are seeing hairs on Jeremy’s pillow and sheets where he lays his head down for sleeping or diaper changes. The hairs fall out and get on his shirt, so it’s been bothering him lately because it can get itchy. Add that to the rash he has on his chest and it’s a whole lot of itchiness that Jeremy can’t soothe by scratching. It’s hard to see this happen, even though we knew it was coming. Jeremy, for the most part, hasn’t really shown physical signs of his illness. He was wobbling a bit when it was early on, but he’s made a lot of progress and it isn’t very noticeable now. But with the hair loss – it’s just a very obvious physical indicator that our son has cancer. It’s been something difficult to say or write.
Please pray:
- that God would continue to use this situation for His glory
- that we would be obedient to God’s plans for this situation
- that we would continue to cast our worries and fears on the Lord
- that God would provide full and complete healing and total health for Jeremy
- that the regenerating bone marrow would produce only good white blood cells, red blood cells, and platelets
- that the bone marrow aspirate at the end of this first block of treatment would show no leukemia cells (that Jeremy would be in remission)
- that we would not see any more fevers for the duration of Jeremy’s recovery
- that Jeremy’s appetite would continue to improve so we can avoid giving him nutrients through the IV
- that the rash under the dressing on his central line site would go away and that it is not a result of infection
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