Boy, how things can change in a hurry. Bennett was admitted tonight to St. Louis Children’s Hospital for fever and bad headache. He couldn’t sleep last night and he said it was around 6 a.m. before he fell asleep. He woke up today around noon and had a bad headache plus a temp of 100.6. We called the clinic and they thought he needed to be seen. We got to the emergency room around 4:30 and his temp was 99.3. His headache was a 7 from a scale of 1 to 10. Dr.’s took blood cultures to make sure he doesn’t have a line infection from his port, that will take 48 hours for results. They gave him meropenum antibiotic through iv and also a pain med for the headache. He was able to sleep most of the time while waiting in the E.R. It’s almost midnight and we just go to our room on 9west and his temp is 100.0.

His ANC tonight was 1,456 with 2.6 WBC and 56 neutrophils. It’s dropped about 1,000 since Monday. His hemoglobin was 11.8 from 13.1 and platelets are 133 from 180. Some of the change can be from the increased chemo pills that he started taking Tuesday but I am sure the fever isn’t helping them.

It’s possible that his headache could be from the spinal tap that he had on Tuesday. His Dr. was even cautious about using a smaller needle and took less spinal fluid to help prevent problems. He also laid down an extra hour in the clinic to help too. Bennett says the headache he has now feels like the same type of headache that he had back in April. This is disappointing as it seemed we really didn’t get much accomplished regarding his headaches for several weeks. The fever though shouldn’t be from the spinal tap.

Bennett was pretty upset today that he is sick again. It had just been about a week or so that he started feeling pretty good, having good counts, and hanging out with friends. He kept on saying today, I only have one more year of this. He is scheduled to finish his maintenance chemotherapy treatment plan in July 2010!

We pray that his temp is normal soon, his headache goes away, his counts stay normal, and that he can come home soon. May God continue to bless Bennett keeping him healthy and in remission forever.