WhatsUpWithJacob

Translated, the critical component of the white cells called neutrophils in Jacob's blood has reached the normal range. Considering that two days ago there weren't even enough of them to count, this is huge progress. We would have been happy with anything over 0.5. The nurses printed me out a copy of the lab results and I've been mooning over them all day.

He's needing much less oxygen, too: 2 liters compared with 12 a couple days ago. They've begun to ween him off a lot of the drugs, lowering his pain medication and dopamine and discontinuing the decadron. Maybe tomorrow they'll stop his antibiotics, vancomycin and ceftazadime as well as the anti-fungal AmBisome. If he could start eating we could think about decreasing the IV nutrition, but as of right now swallowing is still too painful.

I hope by tomorrow all these things will add up to a happier camper. Healing is evidently exhausting work. He's been completely wiped out today.

Thanks for all the emails. I love them!