BMT: Isolation (Day +18)

Drum roll please….  Today, Clark’s ANC reached a whopping 740!

Way to go Clark! I was surprised, amazed and so full of joy when I heard the wonderful news. When we get 3 days with ANC above 500, lots of things change.  Here are a couple examples…

• Connor can come visit (actually come in the treatment room), as long as he doesn’t have any signs of a cold.
• Patrick and I can eat and drink in the treatment room.  No longer do we have to sneak out into the anteroom for a coffee or a snack.
• Clark can start to be prepared to return home. He won’t be released right away, but they will definitely start preparing to send him home.  And in our case, this may happen fairly quickly given that he is eating and drinking normally, and has most of his medication orally.

Putting the boys together again raises some “new” issues, but we’re lucky in some respects.

Since the boys were born, I have been on-time with their immunizations (we still space them out when we administer them, we just don’t “deny” them any). There is still a scare (depending on who you talk to) that the vaccines themselves can cause harm, such as autism or mercury poisoning. Some parents still refuse to vaccinate at all!  After spending hours reading both points of view, Patrick and I decided that the benefits of getting the boys immunized outweighed those of forgoing them.

I am very glad we chose this path. Right now, Clark has the immune system of a baby born 4 months premature. When we “wiped out” Clark’s bone marrow with chemotherapy, we also effectively “wiped out” the vaccines in his blood.

As some of you are probably aware, you can’t give a baby all their vaccines right away. During the time an infant is born, and when you can give them their first vaccine, the baby is completely exposed.  Normally this timeframe is covered by receiving their mothers antibodies and supported immune system while breast feeding.   That won’t be an option for Clark, since I stopped nursing him 8 months ago.  The good news is that we don’t have to wait as long as when he was an infant, and we can “fast track” his immunizations (and still keep them spaced out).

The reason I am so glad the boys are both up-to-date with their shots, is because of Connor. Clark is not supposed to play, or be near other children that haven’t been immunized. Common illnesses like measles, chicken pox or whooping cough could kill Clark if he was exposed.  We are lucky that Clark’s risk of catching these, or more deadly diseases, is greatly minimized due to the fact that Connor won’t be exposing them to Clark.

Similarly, none of us (Patrick and myself included) have ever had the flu shot. This year will be our exception. Since neither Patrick, nor myself work with the elderly or other immune compromised people, we didn’t feel it was necessary. When it comes to getting the flu, we had the mentality of “if it doesn’t kill you, it will only make you stronger!” Since we are now caring for an immune compromised child, we have to become much more practical about these things.