Day 4

Day four has bought along some gloomy weather both outside and inside.

Today Shane spiked his first temperature. It started at 38.4 degrees, and then progressed to 39.2 degrees. This is a pretty major event as there is a protocol that needs to be followed when a fever begins. The nurses need to get "cultures" for everything. This means bloods are taken from both the Hickman line and peripheral blood, and samples are taken of everything else. These samples are sent away to pathology to be cultured to see what type of bug/s are present. He is then seen by a Doctor and started on some broad spectrum antibiotics. Pathology will take a few days to grow a culture (hopefully if its not a crazy quick growing bug!), so we wait and watch until we know more information.

Yesterday I sensed there was a temperature on its way. The first clue was his temperature was 37.1 degrees. We know from history that Shane lives at 37.8 degrees, and anytime he has gone above 37.0 degrees, he was only ever heading in one direction - upwards. The other clue was he had a really hot head last night, the rest of him was fine, just his head was burning hot - bizarre!

So his blood counts have completely bottomed out today. Just to confirm my suspicion of a temperature being on its way, Shane's platelet count dropped dramatically to only 28 (normal is 140-400). Tomorrow, Shane will require platelet transfusions as he will definitely be below 20. Platelets are very sensitive to infection and are usually a warning sign.

His neuts and WBCs have also dropped, so again, a fever is no surprise. RBCs are a little more hardy and are living at 106 (normal 115-180). Previously, if they got below 90, that would require blood transfusions, but now due to a severe shortage of blood the cut off point is below 80.

While Shane has a temperature, he will churn through his blood very quickly and will require transfusions almost every second day depending on how sick he is and how long it lasts for.

So if you have some spare time, please go and give blood!

"Make another heart throb"!

xx