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We're home.  And the Leafs dropped two in a row over the last two nights.  The natural balance of the universe has been restored.

Wednesday Update

Alex has had a very rough 24 to 36 hours dealing withdrawal symptoms from the morphine.  We were up pretty much all night or at least every 30 to 45 minutes.  Miserable.  It was bad enough that at about noon today he went back on morphine with the goal of trying a more drawn out weaning process this time to, ideally, avoid the side effects.

It seems to be working so far, he has improved a fair bit this afternoon, but things change so fast sometimes we're not claiming victory yet.  We are getting to know the doctors all too well.

 It must be time to go home soon.  The local store never did have Becks and has run out of Pilsner Urquell.  Not sure how that happened.

Thanks for the emails, that really does help. 

A Very Disappointing Day

How quickly things turn sometimes.  Alex was so good yesterday, eating, drinking, laughing, almost normal.  Even saying he wanted to go to the Canucks game on Saturday.

Unfortunately since the early hours of this morning he has not been well at all.  The morphine was gradually reduced over the previous 36 hours but it looks like it has left him with some fairly significant withdrawal symptoms.  He's not eating or drinking, sweaty without a fever, nausea, the list goes on. Restlessness is another symptom and he didn't sleep much through the night.  A mild sedative has helped him sleep a bit this afternoon but he is very uncomfortable.

I made a mistake yesterday, getting too "up."  And I should know better. The trick is to stay level and not get too happy about the good days because otherwise you'll really crash on the bad days.

Thud.

I think our Wednesday release is unlikely now.

Thanks for the emails.

Guess Who Came to Visit?

Left to right: Jannik Hansen, Alex Bolduc, Manny Malhotra, Big Alex, Tanner Glass & Alex Burrows

The Canucks made their traditional Christmas visit to BC Children's Hospital today and some stopped in to Alex's room.  Brought a real smile to his face!  Classy organization, the kids love the visits.

Two More Nights?

Alex's counts continue to tick up, his neutrophils were 1.18 today and the mucositis is disappearing pretty quickly.  He's much happier and is eating and drinking a little.

His intravenous nutrition is being dialed down from 24 hours to twelve and then to six.  The morphine does is gradually being reduced as well as the pain from the mucositis recedes.  His mission now is to eat and drink!  That is easier said than done though, his system needs to get used to it again.

If all goes according to plan Alex will be released Wednesday, some 16 days after being admitted.  It's been a long, tough haul, that's for sure.

Two more nights.  We hope.

A Bounce?

The Bruins couldn't get it done last night despite the superb goaltending of Tim Thomas.  One has to give the Leafs credit, they kept working hard the whole game. (It kills me to write that!  But it's true.)

Alex's neutrophils are a bit higher today at 0.79.  Yesterday they were .44.  Being below 0.50 is key cut off level, below that one is "neutropenic" and extremely susceptible to infections.  "Normal" is 1.5 to 7.4 so he still has away to go, but this is the first meaningful increase we have seen  since being here and being above the 0.50 level is comforting.  In theory, if this isn't a head fake, progress should become a little quicker now. His platelets have rebounded strongly, sometimes a good leading indicator.

Alex was in pretty good spirits yesterday afternoon and evening and is the same this morning.

Day by day.

***********

Special thanks go out to Grandma Paddy's nurse  friend Judith who has now donated platelets twice and traveled considerable distances to do so.  Platelets are always in scarce supply and this is a great thing to do. 

Thank you Judith!

(Not exactly) The Twelve Days of Christmas

We've been here for twelve days now and for the most part they have been pretty miserable, I'm sorry to say.  The mucositis has diminished a bit but won't get better quickly until Alex's white blood cells recover - and that has been slow to happen. In the meantime, he still has a lot of pain in his throat and has been on morphine without interruption.   Until yesterday, he has been in bed pretty much the whole time and not terribly comfortable.

Cynthia is just over a bad cold and when you have a cold you are persona non grata in these parts so we felt even a little more cut off.

On Monday we moved back down to ward 2B from 3B and actually into the room we were in for nine days when Alex was first diagnosed back in July. We broke our record.  It seems like it has been a long time.  I was quite happy as this room is on an outside wall and has a window.  The room we were in previously was an interior room.  There's something nice about being able to know whether it's rainy or sunny, night or day by looking out the window.

Many weeks ago I had agreed to speak at the annual Crystal Ball which is the BC Childrens Hospital Foundation's annual gala fundraiser which took place this past Thursday.  I didn't much feel like it but we had bought a table a while back and a commitment is a commitment so we went.  The theme for the even, somewhat ironically I suppose, was "Celebrate."  Nurse M, who looked after Samantha when she was a newborn when Pam was first sick  and has become a friend of my mother's, came to stay with Alex for everyone's collective peace of mind.

I got through the speech okay and it was good to get out.  We had close friends at our table and it was great to see them but it was a bit weird to be "out"!  Sensory overload.  They raised a hair over a million dollars.  Not bad.

Alex has been getting nutrition intravenously since last Friday as he can't eat due to the pain from the mucositis.  His weight has come up a touch which is good but yesterday he ate almost a whole piece of chicken quesadilla and had a mug of warm milk.  That is the first solid food he has eaten in two weeks.  His platelets had jumped up too from about 99 on Thursday to 175 which is almost normal.  Neutrophils, the good white blood cells, were still very low at 0.4.  He was sitting up and quite chatty - he probably spoke more in half an hour yesterday evening than in the previous week to give you an idea how things have been.

Platelets often seem to lead the way as blood cells recover so I was a bit disappointed today when the neutraphil count was pretty much unchanged.  We need that to rebound.  But Alex looks better and is eating - sparsely, but eating and that is a big change, hopefully the rebound has finally begun.

The Habs won 3-1 this afternoon - we missed half the game not knowing it was on so early - and they looked good doing it.  PK who?  A sound thrashing of the Leafs by Boston would be nice. And then the Oil host St. Louis and will hopefully soften them up before they arrive in Vancouver for tomorrow's game.  That's our plan for today.

Patience required.  Go neutrophils!