More cells and terrible breathing treatments

White Blood Count - 280 cells/microliter
Absolute Neutrophil Count - 80 cells/microliter
Segmented neutrophils - 27.3%
Band Neutrophils - 0%
Lymphocytes - 48.5%
Monocytes - 21.2%
Eosinophils - 3%
Basophils - 0%

Have I mentioned how much I HATE the breathing treatments Cael is getting 3 times a day? Let me say it again. I HATE them. This morning, his treatment was at 4 AM. The respiratory therapist was late (as usual), and Cael was awake. So he spent the entire 2 hours crying and crying. He got Adivant, an antinausea that he has every 8 hours, but that didn't help him to sleep like they thought it would. We also gave him a few pushes of morphine, which didn't help to calm him down at all. Absolutely nothing would help him calm down, except for taking him out of it when it was done. And to make things worse, I found out a few hours later that the respiratory therapist didn't hook up the machine correctly, so Cael didn't even get ANY of the medication. So we tortured him for 2 hours for absolutely no reason.

We have had so many problems with the respiratory therapists at this hospital. They don't seem to know what is going on. On several occasions, Adam or I would have to show them how to set up the machine and the box/tent for Cael to be in. The guy last night was the worst one yet. He didn't know how the machine worked, so Adam showed him. Then he still did it wrong for the 4 AM treatment, and Cael got none of the medication. He also gets a xopenex treatment (a nebulized medicine that he breathes in through a mask to help open up his bronchioles), which the respiratory therapist didn't do enough of. There was still at least 1 full dose of the medicine in the mask when we woke up. Sigh...

The doctors are very happy with the progress that Cael is making with his cell counts right now. One doctor, yesterday, said that they usually don't see ANC counts above 0 until day 16-18, but Cael started showing them at day 14. The counts will go up and down several times, but once they are really going, they will increase exponentially, I think. Every cell will divide, then each of those divide, so the counts should start going up faster and faster. They want the ANC above 500 cells/microliter for 3 days to consider him engrafted, but they need it above 2500 before they will let him leave the hospital.

I am so happy that he is in the engraftment process. However, it is making me really count down until we get to leave here. I still don't have a good idea of how long it will be before we get to leave, but the more his cells increase, the closer it is, and I think that is making me get a little more stir crazy! I want to leave the hospital so much. I just want to be in a normal bed, no more vital signs in the middle of the night, and get back to some sort of normalcy. Until then, I'll keep counting down...