Sam is doing a lot better - day 2 of radiation behind us and his appetite is coming back. Kathy home after having her T cells collected. 

Adding on to John’s post: It’s pouring rain here in Palo Alto today — yet another “atmospheric river.” Thanks to John’s hard work, our house is in great shape: sump pumps are working, water is staying out, everything is off the floor in our machine room. 

Sam was asleep for most of the afternoon on Monday and into the night. The sleep was fitful and full of PVCs (premature ventricular beats)  from before I got to the hospital  until about 8:00 pm.  It started at 12-15/2 minutes and got up into the 30s per every 2 minutes over the course of the hour,  which was a bit difficult for me watching the monitor, but our medical team reassured us that he was doing fine.   At 8:00 pm or so, they were 0. 

at 10:30 pm he woke up and was pretty chipper considering what he’d been through. Of course, by that point I was in my pjs and reading my book 😂.  I told him about a funny moment he’d had when I first arrived: he said something in his sleep and it was clear to me it was about Overwatch, his favorite video game, but then the funny part was how, right after that, he just switched into normal Sam and said to me “I don’t know why I say those weird things, Mom.”  And then he went back to sleep. 😂

Hospital life is full of all kinds of moments like these and like the PVCs too. Just gotta keep it all balanced. 

He did get his first fever since diagnosis so that was a milestone. But I think this too puts him in the “GOAT” status as most kids/teens with B Cell ALL have had a few fevers by 8.5 months. The fever quickly went back down but the started a round of antibiotics just in case.  They didn’t culture his central line (which could be a source of infection) as they were very certain the fever was a reaction to the ATG medicine and not an infection.

I thought the night would be more eventful, but thankfully it wasn’t.  He slept. They took vitals at 12 and 4 am and blood too at 4 am. Everything checked out. Not too many beep beep beeps from the monitors. No more PVCs thankfully.