Wednesday, September 1, 2010

I think today is a good day for a miracle

Well the past week had been going pretty good. We got Nik & Nate off to the first grade and they love it which is great! We'd just been plugging away trying to stay healthy. We had been going over to american fork hospital daily for blood draws, and so far things were looking fine. We went to a clinic visit up at LDS on Monday and Dr. Asch told us things looked good and we should get out and enjoy life a little. So here we were feeling pretty good about things.....
Until Tuesday morning. Clint woke up early with a fever of 102.7 (although he told me it was 101.9 and only admitted it was higher that night) but by the time we called the hospital to let them know a couple hours later it was already down to 100.3. They told us the doctors wanted to see us to draw some blood cultures and stuff. So we head up to LDS again. They do the normal blood draw, along with a bunch of other blood tests and we're sent to an infusion chair to wait. We're just thinking that maybe he needs some platelets or some red blood cells because he was feeling pretty tired that day. So while Clint is kind of in and out of sleep while we're waiting, I am checking online to see if our results are in (I can check on our insurance site, they post them as soon as they are available, which I've decided can be good or bad). Well the results come up and I start looking them over and I notice that both his platelets and hematocrit are both above his parameter for needing a transfusion. So I'm thinking great we won't have to be here too long. And then I see his blast count, which has been at 0 for a while now, which needs to stay at 0 (forever preferably), but it says 9...
I think I might have stopped breathing for a minute. Clint was sleeping, and I didn't want to tell him what I'd seen anyways. So I just sat there, for almost an hour, before the doctor finally came in. When he asked the nurse if there was a room available (because we were still in the infusion area) I knew we needed to brace ourselves for bad news. At this point I'm feeling really guilty for not telling Clint about the blasts, because I knew what was coming, although I'm not sure if that was better or worse. So Dr. Hoda tells us that there are blasts in Clints blood (yes I wanted to shake him and say, I know what do we do now, but I was really trying to be calm for Clint). He tells us that they are pretty sure they are leukemic blasts, although there is a very small chance that they could just be immature cells that show as blasts but will turn into healthy cells. He tells us they are sending them to the pathologist so they can look at them and see if they can tell for sure if they are leukemic or not, but that there was a chance they wouldn't be able to tell for sure without doing a bone marrow biopsy. At this point we start going over options of what to do from here (stay at the hospital to figure out his fever-which is completely gone by this point, maybe do another round of chemo, etc). Dr. Hoda said they would like us to stay at the hospital until the pathology reports came back, but this was at 11am and the reports wouldn't be back until 4 or 5pm at the earliest. So we told him we were going home. We did not see any point in sitting at the hospital doing nothing (other than another IV antibiotic that they ended up sending us home with anyways) when we could come home and spend time with the boys. Especially since we had no idea what tomorrow would bring.
So we left. We came home, played with the boys, had a nice night. And didn't hear anything from the hospital that night. Well this morning Clint woke up with the same crazy fever, but just like the day before it went down fairly fast. We decided to just go to american fork hospital for our blood draw. So we called up to LDS because we know that on Wednesday mornings they have tumor board (where all the docs meet to discuss all the transplant patients) and we let them know that the results of our blood work should be coming over soon so if they would discuss our case and let us know what the best next step would be that would be good. And then we wait...
Well about 11:30 we get a call from LaDee, our transplant coordinator, with amazing news. According to the pathologist the cells did not look leukemic, and there were no blasts in our blood draw today!!! LaDee was so happy on the phone, I wanted to reach through the phone and kiss her! It was the most amazing feeling I think I've ever had, I knew I had just witnessed a miracle! I just had a huge smile and wanted to dance around the house. We really wanted to do something to celebrate but couldn't think of anything that sounded fun and safe (we're still trying to keep Clint healthy ya know). So we just hung out with the boys, we took them over to the church to ride their bikes, and then we had a yummy dinner with my parents, and then went to Clints parents and had ice cream sundaes. It was a wonderful day!
This doesn't mean that we are out of the woods in anyway. And I'm sure we still have a long road ahead of us. But we are treasuring this day. This great news. And this miracle that we received today!
Today was most definitely a wonderful day full of miracles and love. I'm so grateful for all the prayers that are said in our behalf, I know that many of them were answered today! Love you!

**Sorry if this post doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It's really late, and I am in a weird state of mind, somewhere between complete exhaustion and witnessed a miracle today euphoria. So you'll just have to excuse the randomness:)

6 comments:

Joli said...

That's great news Amy! You've been in our hears and we're praying for a full recovery for Clint :)

Anonymous said...

We are sooo elated to hear the news! We're still praying! - Greg

Jackie said...

Oh yay! This story makes me want to cry of joy! So happy for you! I hope things only get better from here! - Jackie (Melanie's friend :) )

Cyndy said...

Love you Amy! Your family is in my prayers!

lindseyj said...

I love all of your posts, random or not! Here's to lots more miracles! :)

Jami said...

Miracles do happen. I have witnessed more than one in my career. I can't think of anyone who deserves a miracle more than you and Clint. I am so happy to hear this news. Love you!