Chugging along...

Day 10

Saturday

Ryan woke up with a LOT of mucus in his throat. It was so bad that they needed to give him a suction tube to help get rid of it. He does need to be careful when he is doing it, so he does not touch his tongue or cheek and cause bleeding. He also received another platelet transfusion to help with any potential bleeding. (His WBC is still bottomed out at .1) He was able to eat a little for breakfast- a few spoonfuls of yogurt and a few sips of Ensure. Then he felt up to doing this:

Ryan is the most lively in the morning. He is usually up the longest, eats the most and gets the most done in that period of time. This picture was taken right after his walk and it tells a lot. I asked him to give me his best cheese:

Eating, walking and showering pretty much wear him out... it is then time to sleep.

He is still in TONS of pain, he doesn't let the PCA pump get too far away:

*

But one thing he did wake up for was a very special visitor:

~Billi Jo~

His favorite nurse from Northwest Hospital

She was so kind to bring him this:

Angel of HOPE and COURAGE

It goes great on his shelf:

*

Then he started to run another fever (# in green):

(Don't know WHY they have to make it complicated and do everything in Celsius and Kilos)

Thank goodness for the conversion chart

They did give him Tylenol and do the standard blood cultures to check for some type of infection. So far, all the cultures have come back negative. They did say that fevers at this point are VERY normal. His fever broke a few hours later and he was able to eat a little lunch and dinner. He had a pretty restful night.

*

Day 11

Sunday

During the night Ryan needed oxygen because his intake was low.

Morning came and he did the usual routine: a SMALLER breakfast, shower, walk and then "Zzzzzz".

His WBC is still bottomed out and he is VERY tired. When he is awake, he uses the suction a lot and doesn't talk because it is too hard to get the words out. The mucus in his throat is getting so bad now, that when he sleeps, you wonder how he can breath through it all. He spent a good majority of the day with the nasal oxygen tube on and he doesn't like it one bit.

I fed him his lunch and he struggled to swallow each and every bite. He got another fever today and when he had to take the Tylenol, I didn't think he was going to be able to swallow the pill. The mucus kept getting thicker and more overwhelming to deal with. By the time dinner rolled around, he didn't want to eat.

He did get another platelet transfusion and also received his last dose of chemo today, it is a much smaller dose and it helps with the graft VS host.

Methotrexate

While he was sleeping I worked on this:

(and got in trouble for taking a picture of it)

(the green squares are chalkboard stickers, so we can leave messages)

*

His mom is staying the night with him tonight and she told me this:

Tonight after Ryan had a few swallows of Breeze (a nutritional drink), he clapped his hands, and I thought, Yes, I should be rewarding him more for his efforts. So, later when he was awake, I told him he was doing a great job, and Ryan said, "Just take it day by day". Then he said, "I am a Child of God". All I could think to say was, "Yes, you are!" and he drifted off to sleep.

Go Ryan, keep fighting

"Lead me, guide me, walk beside me, help me find the way...

teach me all that I must do, to live with him some day."

***GO TEAM RYAN***