Extended Stay

Lauri's fever persists, so we have been admitted to MD Anderson Hospital for the next few days. We arrived at the MD Anderson Emergency Center last night around 9pm, and the doctors there thought Lauri had a "Neutropenic" fever, basically a fever in patients with extremly low blood counts, especially low white blood cell counts.

They called our Oncologist, and she decided to admit us to the hospital for further tests and observation. Her reasoning is that Lauri was already on preventative antibiotics when the fever spiked yesterday. She is not sure at this point why the fever is here now, and what we need to do to get it back down. We were admitted to the hospital at around 2 or 3 am this morning (long night)...

We talked to the Sarcoma Oncologist on call, who turned out to be the chairman of the Sarcoma Center. Interesting that the chairman has to work the weekend!?! I guess it's not as good as it used to be to be the king.... Anyway, the on call doctor visits patients during weekend hours in the hospital; we should see our personal Oncologist on Monday.

The On Call doctor agreed that Lauri seems completely healthy except for the fever. Her fever this morning had risen as high as 103.3 deg, before being dropped again with tylenol. The blood cultures so far are negative for infection, as is the chest x-ray. The doctor said the fever is not due to the blood transfusion because there has been too much time since the transfusion took place. He agrees with the Emergency Center doctor that the fever is likely due to low blood counts. Lauri's white blood cell count last night, around 12:00am, was 1.0, and had risen to 1.5 this morning. Normal range for white blood cells is 4-10.

He added that fever due to problems with the transfusion would occur within the first few hours, not 24 hours + afterwards. He also clarified that Lauri received two units of red blood cells, not whole blood (MD Anderson does not transfuse whole blood). Whole blood includes white blood cells and antibodies from the donor that can sometimes negatively interact with the patient receiving the blood.

We have been told that we will remain in the hospital until the fever is under control. We should have more definitive direction once we speak to our Oncologist on Monday. We anticipate remaining in the hospital until at least Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on how her fever behaves today. We hope to see improvement in Lauri's temperature as her white blood cells continue to increase. In the meantime, Lauri is resting comfortably at Ritz Anderson, feasting on jello and thoroughly investigating the assortment of TV stations available in the room...

I will provide updates as soon as I can...