No fever, but still in the hospital

Ori's feeling much better. He has a lot more energy and is acting more like himself the past day and a half.

We have to meet two criteria to be discharged: no fever for 24 hours and his immune system has to strengthen.

We've accomplished the first goal - he hasn't had a fever since Sunday night/Monday morning at 1:00am.

But his immune system #s aren't as high yet as they'd like. His ANC (Absolute Nutrophil Count) number is currently in the 160s. The goal to go home is around 250. What's considered a strong enough ANC to handle chemo (and not be at risk for the body weakening and being exposed to possible infection) is above 1000. For reference, when we went to his regular oncology appointment last Thursday his ANC was just 90, and yesterday morning it was 0 (yes, zero).

But his blood cultures are coming back negative for any bacterial infection, so all signs point to his body recovering as we'd expected it would. Just not as fast as we'd hoped. The doctors may want us to stay another day, at least until Wednesday.

Last night we had a wonderful visitor. The family of another patient in the hospital, a 6 yr old girl, decided to organize a toy drive for the oncology and hematology kids who had to be here for the week of Christmas. The girl's mother brought in a huge bag of toys for Ori - a fire truck, Clifford DVDs, cars, little slippers, a big teddy bear, and a couple of wrapped gifts. He was elated; he lit up as if it was Christmas morning (and he hasn't stopped playing with the fire truck since). What makes that gesture even more remarkable is that the 6 yr old girl has spent the past half year in and out of the hospital with a brain tumor.

As tough as it is to be here during the week of Christmas, it's also inspiring at the same time.