Patrick travels internationally for work. During Clark’s BMT and recovery, his boss has been very supportive and has let Patrick work from home as often as possible.
Even with a very supportive work environment, Patrick still needs to do his job. So over the last couple months, he has needed to travel on a few business trips. Mostly to Mexico and South America, as well as one trip to Portland Oregon. And of all the places he could have got some strange disease, it was actually in Portland that Patrick picked up some awful flu.
Since Clark’s immune system is so weak right now, catching a cold is very dangerous. We were extremely lucky that Patrick started getting symptoms before he flew home. This gave us just enough time to do some planning.
It seems that every cold and flu is a little different, so there isn’t an exact number of days that you are considered contagious. In general, we were told that most people are contagious 2 days before they show symptoms and continue staying contagious up to 2-3 weeks after starting to show symptoms. The most contagious part of a cold is during it’s peak (while you are coughing, sneezing, blowing your nose and feeling terrible).
As soon as Patrick flew back to California, he booked a hotel near the house, and stayed there for 3 nights. I would stop by every night to drop off food and visit with him. It was tough on him. He was in miserable shape, and everyone who loved him had to stay far away. But we all knew the risks, and neither he nor I wanted to risk Clark’s health.
Around day 5 of his cold, we decided it would be ok to have Patrick come back home. Even so, we had some very strict guidelines though. Patrick had to stay in the back bedroom (master) with the doors locked (because we knew the boys would try to sneak in to see him). There is a full en-suite bathroom on the master bedroom, and Patrick’s computer/ office is in there as well. So thankfully he still had a way to work, or be entertained by movies in the evenings.
The day before Patrick came home, Rosemary had to return to Canada. She was so incredibly helpful over the entire 6 months she spent with us. I honestly don’t think we would have survived without her. There was a benefit to the timing of Patrick’s cold, and when Rosemary went home…. this made room for me to sleep on the fold out couch while Patrick took over the master bedroom. :) We had this arrangement for about 6 days, until we were (pretty) sure that Patrick wasn’t contagious anymore.
The good news is that the planning paid off, and no one else got sick. Meanwhile, at least 6-7 people Patrick works with also got sick – so this was definitely a contagious bug!
Here are a few extra thoughts for anyone in a similar situation with a neutropenic child:
1) Before Patrick came home, I packed up my clothes, toiletries and other items I might need to use over the next week. I shared a closet and the bathroom with the boys. I also packed up the playpen (which we had at the end of the bed), and made sure there were no toys in the room. This would reduce the number of trips needed to visit the room, reducing the chances of touching something that was contaminated and exposing Clark to it.
2) I was the only one with in-and-out privileges. Patrick was not allowed to go into the kitchen to grab food, or anywhere else in the house. I would bring him food, tea, vitamins etc.. whenever he needed (and I was available). This was always done with mask and gloves.
3) We left a large bottle of hand sanitizer inside the bedroom door.
4) During the worst of Patrick’s cold, he would wear a mask while working on the computer or watching a movie. This helped prevent germs from spraying everything from his coughs and sneezes, especially since computer screens and keyboards can be a bit difficult to sanitize safely.
5) Once we determined that Patrick was no longer contagious, I (with the help of Patrick) went into the bedroom with a mask and gloves to change the bedsheets, pillowcases, and towels. Sanitized all of the doorknobs, dresser knobs, alarm clock buttons, etc… and any surfaces he may have touched or coughed on.