Two Steps Forward...One Step Back
Tuesday was a day filled with great progress and a few setbacks.
Progress: Both Occupational Therapy and Physical Therapy came by and began to work with Keith in readiness for sending him home. OT is focused on "self-care" - putting on shoes, brushing teeth, etc. Keith is having no difficulties, but must adjust to lifting no more than 5 lbs and not bending down so that his head is lower than his heart. These measures will prevail until the surgery site is completely healed. The most difficult thing seems to be putting on socks and shoes - the feet have to come up rather than the upper body going down! No problems - just different.
PT is concerned with mobility around the house. When they learned we had a lot of stairs, they had Keith walking up and down a flight of stairs. Again, he is weak but he did manage the round trip. We began tapering the steroids and made a swap to less potent pain medication (pill form) - both steps in preparation for leaving the hospital.
Setbacks: After a full afternoon - OT, PT and a few visitors, Keith developed a fever (102.4) and needed pain meds for his headache by late afternoon. We have been monitoring his platelets since the surgery and yesterday his counts started to take another nosedive. He was down to 57,000 by the end of the day and the doctor ordered 2 units of platelets late in the evening. His platelets are under attack in part because of the chemo we did last week and in part because of the high doses of steroids. Platelets are important for clotting - extremely low levels will result in spontaneous bleeding so we need to monitor him closely until he is well into the normal range.
I am pleased to report that this morning his fever is back to normal. We will continue to follow his platelet count during the day. Yesterday there was talk of sending him home today - it seems likely that that will be pushed off to tomorrow. One step at at time....
Progress: Both Occupational Therapy and Physical Therapy came by and began to work with Keith in readiness for sending him home. OT is focused on "self-care" - putting on shoes, brushing teeth, etc. Keith is having no difficulties, but must adjust to lifting no more than 5 lbs and not bending down so that his head is lower than his heart. These measures will prevail until the surgery site is completely healed. The most difficult thing seems to be putting on socks and shoes - the feet have to come up rather than the upper body going down! No problems - just different.
PT is concerned with mobility around the house. When they learned we had a lot of stairs, they had Keith walking up and down a flight of stairs. Again, he is weak but he did manage the round trip. We began tapering the steroids and made a swap to less potent pain medication (pill form) - both steps in preparation for leaving the hospital.
Setbacks: After a full afternoon - OT, PT and a few visitors, Keith developed a fever (102.4) and needed pain meds for his headache by late afternoon. We have been monitoring his platelets since the surgery and yesterday his counts started to take another nosedive. He was down to 57,000 by the end of the day and the doctor ordered 2 units of platelets late in the evening. His platelets are under attack in part because of the chemo we did last week and in part because of the high doses of steroids. Platelets are important for clotting - extremely low levels will result in spontaneous bleeding so we need to monitor him closely until he is well into the normal range.
I am pleased to report that this morning his fever is back to normal. We will continue to follow his platelet count during the day. Yesterday there was talk of sending him home today - it seems likely that that will be pushed off to tomorrow. One step at at time....
posted by Keith and Kathy | 7:20 AM
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