Another Rough Day...

Joe had a pretty rough day today.  Numbers continue to be low with slight improvement.  WBC is at .3, HCT is at 25.6 and Platelets are at 10.  Blood sugars and Blood pressure held steady at 126/72.  Fever continued at 99.2.  We anticipate tomorrow will be another blood transfusion as well as platelet transfusion.  Since the "general population" platelets have not been boosting him like they should, we will try more specific matched platelets (ABO for those RNs peeking in on Joe) to hopefully get a good boost in the platelet count.  

He's managed to hurt his left shoulder - not sure how, so was taking morphine and hot packs today to help with the pain in the shoulder.  Pain level this am was around a 9 out of 10 and at 4 pm was about a 5 to 6 out of 10.  So still pretty significant.  He also commented that he'd had a pretty bad headache the last couple of days.  Another dose of morphine and some compazine to help simmer his tummy and he was back to sleep.  We ordered some french onion soup, a banana, crackers and applesauce for dinner - which he at most of - so that was good.  

He also commented today that his hair felt funny - a good sign that it will start falling out shortly.  I'm sure by the time I see him tomorrow night, he will have had his head shaved.  

Given the amount of medication he was on today (specifically the Morphine and Ativan for his stomach - we switched him back to compazine), he was pretty disoriented and unsteady today.  We did manage to get one walk with Gertie this evening.  

Keep the prayers coming!  He's not out of the woods yet.