I was doing pretty damn well with blogging fairly regularly. I was almost proud of myself. I planned on taking a few days off when we went down to Georgetown, and that was all. What I didn't plan on was the entrance of ITP into our lives. That has been the bane of my existence as of late, although thankfully, Landry seems to remain blissfully unaware, except for those pesky blood draws.
He held at 28,000 platelets for over a week. The petechia started to disappear.Then came the morning that they started to come back, followed by the day that they were worse, and there were two or three in his mouth. I called his hematologist, and they scheduled us for a lab the following day, followed by an appointment.
The doctor came in when the results were back. Seven thousand. That was it. We were almost sent straight home with a prescription for prednisone, and instructions on when to use it. Strict orders that ANY bump to the head was an instant call to hematology and a trip to the ER. We didn't make it past check-out before we had to go back to the room, as Landry went and headbutted a waiting room chair. They iced his noggin and watched him awhile, then sent us on our way.
We ended up in the ER that night, while our neighbor Nicole watched Ryli. After four hours of observation, they let us go home. Ryli and Landry had slammed into each other running opposite directions through a doorway, and they were on the floor crying for a few minutes after. As they gave us the discharge information, they said that it was far better to err on the side of caution with his platelets as low as they are.
Thursday was uneventful. Petechia, purpura, and bruises have become old hat. Friday, however, was different. On my check of his mouth when he woke up, Landry had no petechia inside his mouth, but two of their larger cousins, purpura. That was one of the reasons we were sent home with that "just in case" prescription of prednisone... so I called the hematologist for the official go ahead to start them. Just before noon, Landry started his five day course.
Day four of Landry on steroids was lab work. The trip there and back was nothing short of hell on earth, between the thunderstorm induced closing of all the downtown DART train stations and the subsequent shuttles and waits, and the various, ridiculous meltdowns over the pettiest of petty reasons. The sole bright point of that whole adventure was the knowledge that the steroids are working. His count was up to 118,000.
We are a few hours of the last dose, and then, its labs again on Wednesday. Hopefully, they stay up. Hopefully, if they do drop, they drop slow. There really is no way of telling. Once again, we wait. That's all we seem to be doing with this whole ITP thing.
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