Admission

Mom is doing this post again today since Evie still isn't up to it herself. Seems like my Day 4 post was a little premature, since it didn't really cover the lowest point after all. After Evie and I returned to her house yesterday and I posted the entry to her blog, we decided to take her temperature (which we had been instructed to do every 4 hours). We had been told to call the clinic if her temperature exceeded 100.5 degrees. So, with the new digital thermometer in mouth, we registered 100.4, 99.6, 99.8, 100.5 and 100.7 all within the space of 5 minutes! Whatever happened to the good old mercury thermometer!! We didn't know what to do, so Evie called Michael. Within an hour or so Michael was home with a fancy electronic thermometer from the lab, which required sticking a wire in the mouth (it was designed to be used with lab instruments). As I left to go home, Evie's temperature was bordering on 100.5 consistently with the new thermometer. Shortly thereafter, it went past 100.5 and Michael called the clinic, and then Evie was admitted to the hospital. 

She has a nice room here at Northside in the special wing where all the bone marrow transplant people stay since it has specially filtered air and cleanliness standards for people with low immunity. It was a rough evening for her with some upchucking and mouth sore pain, but Michael spent the night and she made it through okay. I'm here now and she's feeling better -- her fever dropped to 100.3 but she cannot eat or drink anything, even water, without pain. They just hooked her up to some pain med pump in hopes that she will at least be able to drink and maybe eat some soft food. She has an appetite, just can't endure the pain of eating!!! So she is watching cooking shows on tv to pass the time. I have been enjoying some of the hospital food they bring her -- feel a little guilty eating in front of her, but oh well!

Speaking of food, Evie and Michael had hired a chef to make some special organic, tasty food to help rebuild Evie's strength and to nourish the caregivers (Michael and me). This very talented chef spent Monday and Tuesday preparing all sorts of amazing dishes and storing them in containers in their refrigerator for us all to eat this week. The house was fragrant with delightful smells when we returned from the clinic yesterday. But -- you guessed it! -- Evie won't be eating any of that tasty food for awhile. I brought a salad and pot roast home for Andy to eat yesterday -- boy, was he happy!

No one knows for sure what the timeline is from here, but the best guess so far is that she will be here for  maybe 3 days until her white cell counts start going up. If she is feeling better then, and if she doesn't have a fever, they'll let her out and we will resume the treks each morning to the clinic at 7 a.m. for a seven-hour stay involving blood tests and more fluids.

We count off the days. Next week she will feel much better; the week after even better, a month from today these mouth sores will be just a dream.