Turn for the Worse

Jenson is in the hospital…and not to get his new chemo.

Yesterday we were scheduled for a PET scan.

We head to the oncology clinic in the morning to access his port and do the blood draws to check his blood counts.

Then we head downtown for the PET scan test (where they “pump him full of radioactive material but don’t worry it’s totally safe”). As we are pulling into the parking garage, the nurse calls.

Doug is on the phone with the nurse, and I hear a few key words: "disturbing", "lost an entire bag of blood", "blood transfusion", "doctor wants to see you", and "no PET scan".

Yes, another blood transfusion. Didn’t he just have one?

And the doctor NEVER wants to see you unexpectedly with good news.

Jenson is feeling worse, so it feels right to cancel the PET scan anyway.

We head back and get the blood transfusion. At the end of the day, the doctor comes to talk to us. Something is wrong. He shouldn’t be losing this much blood, having his counts drop so dramatically, and continuing to run fevers. The current theories are:

1) Disease out of control and attacking organs
(like the liver, spleen, or bone marrow) –> if so, give chemo now
2) Infection -> if so, clear infection before chemo
3) Disease out of control & brain involvement causing fevers
-> if so, wait for counts to recover before more chemo

Option 3 is the best of the bad options… and any option with disease out of control is not good.

They admit us to the hospital. I take Jenson over to the “overnight hospital side”. We are greeted by our favorite nurse Ginny who took such good care of us last time. There is comfort in seeing a friendly, welcoming face. She gets Jenson some popsicles and finds the movie Cars for him. He is happy.

Doug takes hospital night duty again – what a sweet dad.

Tuesday brings tests, tests, and more tests: CT scan, bone marrow sample, full body x-rays, ultrasound, urine sample, blood cultures, blood work.

Jenson has been to all those rooms before so the element of surprise is missing. He knows he hates them. Each test brings crying and screaming.

After the ultrasound, he wants to call Sydney at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. I put her on speaker phone so Jenson can hear.

Sydney says, “Hi Jenson!” in her confident big sister voice.

“Hi Sydney.” Jenson says between deep breaths as he is still recovering from crying so hard. He starts smiling.

“I am coming to your hospital today to eat popsicles with you!” Sydney says excitedly.

“You eat popsicles with me? And yogurt tubes?” Jenson says back.

“Yeah, Jenson. I’ll see you today.” Sydney says.

Jenson then says, “I love you Sydney.”

“I love you Jenson,” Sydney replies back.

Doug and I both have tears in our eyes – as does the ultrasound technician. There is something so sweet and pure about the simplicity of this conversation between a brother and sister.

Jenson has a rough day all day needing lots of back-rubbing, tummy-rubbing, head-rubbing, snuggling, and morphine.

No news yet on the results… hopefully tomorrow. This is one of those instances where you really don't want to know.

Kristin