Praise God, Jeremy was fever free for 48 hours and nothing grew out of the blood cultures! The additional antibiotics were taken off today and they decreased his fluids. But the fever seems to have caused some sort of viral rash that’s spread all over his body. He was really scratching at it before bed tonight.

Praise God, Jeremy’s platelet count seems to have gone up on it’s own! His red blood count was still low, though, so they had to order a transfusion for him. Still, his body producing it’s own platelets is a great sign of recovery.

We were told today that the bone marrow aspirate which will tell us if there are any detectable leukemia cells in his system has been tentatively scheduled for next week.  But this can get pushed back depending on his counts at that time.

Today was also the first time we heard the word “discharged.” We were told that depending on whether or not he’s trending upward, and hopefully he is, we may be going home for the rest of his recovery for this block of treatment (probably about a week). It’s all still a whole lot of “maybe” right now, though. We’ll find out more over the next few days.

Possibly going home for a little bit means a few things. While we’re glad to be home for a short time, we won’t be leaving without an education on central line maintenance. The things that the nurses were doing – dressing changes, blood draws, changing line caps, and line flushing – will be our tasks to take over. We’re really nervous about doing the line maintenance since we have no medical background whatsoever. Changing the dressing means exposing the central line site, which means putting Jeremy at risk for infection. Changing the caps means exposing the line, which means putting Jeremy at risk for infection. Basically, we have to be very vigilant about performing these maintenance tasks as sterile as possible. To our nurse friends: we may be calling on you for help in the near future.

Please continue to pray (new items in bold):

• 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 God would manage the fevers we’ve encountered
• that the additional antibiotics for the fevers would not cause any kidney damage
• 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
• that the rash caused by Jeremy’s fever would settle down and fade and not cause Jeremy too much irritation
• that God would continue to give Jeremy an extra portion of His strength, so Jeremy would continue being his playful, energetic self.
• for safety for Jeremy, since he is so playful in such a confined place with such low platelet counts