We made it home around 7 pm on the Thursday evening. 6 days since we found out about the bi-lateral Wilm's tumor. Armed with a bag of medications that we were supposed to give Luke at home.
There were two blood pressure medications, each to be given every 8 hours with at least two hours between the different medications. An anti-fungal mouth rinse that was supposed to be given every six hours (after every meal) to prevent mouth sores which can accompany some of the chemo medications and an anti-biotic to be given twice a day on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
Luke was very irritable and wanted to be held constantly. He wouldn't let me put him down. Even when I held him in my arms, he didn't seem to have the strength or will power to hold up his own head. This was disturbing to me because only the week before he had attempted and succeeded to take a few tentative steps on his own. Now he couldn't even sit by himself.
We went to bed and slept well. The next day was spent with me carrying him around again. He had a bit of a temperature but nothing too high. He still didn't seem to have any energy.
On Saturday, his temperature went even a bit higher and since it was one of the things we were warned about at the hospital, I called the oncologist and we were advised to bring him back to the hospital.
We arrived at the emergency around noon and were ushered into an isolation room (standard practice to keep him away from the other sick kids). His VAD was accessed. Blood was drawn and an anti-biotic was administered intravenously. Urine was collected. After several hours we were released with the instructions to bring him back in the next day.
We arrived at the hospital by noon on Sunday and were informed that bacteria had been found in his urine (E. Coli) and again his VAD was accessed and more anti-biotics were given. After a few hours we were released and sent home with a prescription for Amoxocillin to be given at home.
His temperature was high but not too bad on Monday. Tuesday we were back at the hospital for his chemo medication (clinic) and he still had a temperature but, again, it wasn't too high.