We're back in the hospital w/ Ori

A fever of 102 Sunday morning sent us to the Phoenix Children's Hospital Emergency Department.

From the time that he was diagnosed last August, we've been told to watch for fever (for two reasons: his low immune system and the portacath foreign body in his chest, which could be the location of a bacterial infection, the first symptoms of which being fever).

However, thus far it looks like he "only" has the flu (a swine-free variety). Where he got the flu, who knows. He hardly goes out lately in this early going in Maintenance (w/ his immune system in flux while they balance out his chemo meds each month). But, there it is, just the same.

The good news about that is his flu virus is a likely cause of the fever. And the fever has since subsided - in fact, this afternoon he'd even returned to his bouncing-on-the-bed self (IV tubes and all - that's been fun to try to curtail every 5 minutes or so).

However, just to be safe, they've administered 24-hour doses of antibiotics and require him to stay in the hospital for observation (until he's fever-free for 48-hours).

So here I sit, in the dark, finally updating the blog (yet another reason to make time to post more of the good-news updates!) as out little flu bugger snores away in the bed beside me. Best-case scenario has us possibly returning home Tuesday evening.

And we're quite lucky to have made it this far into his treatment and not had a fever hospitalization like this before now. The nurses commented that they didn't recognize his name (from any previous stays) and they assumed, with his being a Leukemia patient, that he was in the much earlier stages of treatment. Yet one more checkmark on the side of good fortune with how his treatment has gone during this entire process. :)