A surprise holiday

Dear Jack

A surprise holiday on C2West today... Just as we were ready to leave the hospital after a whole day of chemo (no further hospital bookings for the rest of the week, woohoo!), they took your temperature as part of the discharge procedure... and that's where the plans changed... Your temperature was 38C so you were immediately admitted to hospital for a 48-hour stay with intravenous antibiotics. And of course, this morning I took the overnight bag out of the car to put some bigger clothes in for you, so we're here without any clothes, toothbrushes, pyjamas... And to make matters worse, I forgot my wallet at home so I can't buy anything. The $60 Aunty Ky lend me this morning have gone mostly to medication so I've got about $10 left for the night. Thank goodness your appetite has gone down since you've stopped taking the steroids!

Even though your fever is a side effect from the chemo you got today and all patients develop a fever after getting this particular drug, they have to treat every rise in temperature as suspicious and give antibiotics as a precaution. They take blood cultures and watch them for 48 hours -- if there are no signs of infection, you can come off the antibiotics and go home. Very frustrating! This is the second time you've been put on antibiotics where the fever was clearly a side effect from medication, but they're adamant they can't take any chances.
You will be getting this same chemo 4 days per week for the next month, so I think we'd better prepare for a month in hospital.

It's all good though; earlier tonight, when we snuggled up against each other in the hospital bed and you had your arm wrapped around me, you said "Mum, this is one of the best nights of my life"! Well Jack, if that's true, it is for me too.

Love
Mum