Life Got Real

We're in the PICU at Lurie's today.  Actually, we've been back at Lurie's since Sunday.  While at RIC this weekend, Jonah spiked what is called a neutropenic fever, which means that while his while blood cell count was low (in his case it seems to actually be 0) he got an infection.  For patients receiving chemo, these neutropenic fevers are their biggest risk.  Unfortunately in Jonah's case, due to  some miscommunication with RIC and general lack of urgency, things got pretty bad and Simon & I ended up driving him the 1/2 block in our van as opposed to waiting for transport.  It was by God's grace that we made that decision, because shortly after arriving at Lurie's ED, he went into septic shock.  It felt a little bit like being on the old Chicago-based show ER with all the medical team around and so much seriousness.

God is good, lots of people were praying, and Jonah is doing MUCH better.  We're still supplementing a few specific electrolytes and watching his platelet and hemoglobin levels, but he's stable and resting.  We learned a lot through this experience about how to handle fevers as well as how to manage our relationship with the medical teams at both hospitals.  We also felt the power of prayer hold us up in a time when the act of breathing should have been hard.  Don't get me wrong, we were scared, very scared, but there was a real sense that God was there.  Actually,  just that morning, my devotional reading in "Jesus Calling" was titled "Entrust Your Loved Ones to Me" and used the example of Abraham & Isaac.  During the chaos of the ED, I was reminded of the reading and felt like God was saying, "I see you, I've got this."

We will likely be at Lurie for the rest of the week, maybe beyond, we don't know yet.  What we do know is that we'll be establishing better guidelines with RIC before we go back so that things don't spiral out of control again; because although we don't know when or how, we do know that there will be more neutropenic fevers and we plan to be better at managing the situation.