Saturday, August 29, 2009

Second Round of Campath

Update 9:30pm: Erin spoke with Fran tonight and she said that Jack's blood pressure has stayed in check even after the Campath treatment. This is a good sign so far because it probably means that the medicine isn't what caused his blood pressure to fluctuate the other day. Jack was also still feeling the effects of the sedation from earlier.

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I took Chris to visit his dad early this morning before bringing him to him up to Wilkes Berre PA where we were meeting his uncle to take him back to Syracuse University. Jack was resting when we got there but he nodded when we said Chris was there to say good bye (at least until next weekend) before going back to school. The nurse said that he had a pretty uneventful night. He was back on the feeding tube again and was set at around 70% oxygen on the respirator. He asked me for some water, so he was still very thirsty like he has been the last few days.

When the doctor's came around this morning they said that his white blood cell count had actually spiked up to over 200 (about three times more than it was yesterday). They decided to give him the second shot of Campath at that point. They will continue to monitor his condition and decided if and when to give him the final dose. During the day today Jack was actually very aware but at one point became very agitated and anxious so the doctors gave him some Benedryl with the Campath injection as well as a sedative. Because of this Jack was much less responsive this evening.

As of this morning the results of the bronchoscopy were not back yet to determine if the cancer is in his lungs. This information will likely impact what the doctor's decided to do.