What fever?

We are home. We actually arrived home on Monday afternoon, to catch the Memorial Day sunshine, but I hesitated to celebrate too much in writing because I was not sure we were going to be able to stay home. Samson's fever just kept popping up periodically over the weekend, resetting the 24 to 48 hour post-fever waiting period. Meanwhile, he stayed on his IV antibiotic (replacing the oral one he gets at home), and the repeat blood cultures kept coming up negative. When his temperature was 100.7 (100.4 is fever) on Monday morning, I felt at wit's end and requested a re-do. I put him down and let him cool his armpits for a while and they came up with 99.5. Not a fever.

The doctor said they would accept the 99.5 and discharge us a little short of 24 hours if we wanted (the last registered fever was at 5 p.m. on Sunday), but that really they recommended we stay another night. She even said, if I were you, I'd stay. Which reaffirmed how little she knows about being me. I said, how fast can you sign those discharge papers?

An afternoon at home with all six of us was worth the pain of readmission if the fever reappeared, and as Aaron likes to say, he doesn't have a fever if you don't take his temperature! When Samson felt warm on Monday night, I couldn't even bring myself to check it. I took the kids up for bath and told Aaron to check. Aaron checked after a nice visit to the cool rainy front porch, and whew, 99.5 again. Or that's what he told me.

Really, the fever business is serious, but we had watched this one for four days, and at least for now I think it was a virus. Until Samson's central line can be removed -- at the earliest, six months post-transplant -- any fever requires immediate hospitalization because it isn't always a non-event; sometimes, they say, you just can't get to the ER fast enough to treat a bad infection. That will keep me taking those temperatures. But it's not all about fevers, it's also whether he seems sick. I do have a certain amount of experience with very sick Samson, and I believe I will know if he is truly ill.

One upside of this hospital trip was that Samson did get visitors -- good ones -- which kept us all a little happier. The foursome snuggled in for a viewing of The Princess and the Frog.

After a day off from the hospital on Tuesday, we went in for a clinic appointment this morning. Those are still twice a week, which, when we were hospitalized, seemed grand. Only two days a week! But now it seems like a rotten way to spend two precious days a week. Today we did blood counts -- ANC is 1100, and he is making platelets and red blood cells also -- and more blood cultures, just in case. We also reviewed his million medications, made some adjustments, repeated his chest x-ray, and went through some questions I had. Three hours later, we were done. Today's appointment was with the nurse practitioner, who I really like. The schedulers try to steer me to Mondays and Thursdays, when Dr. Nemecek covers the clinic, but I am steering myself back to Amy, because I like her better. So my next appointment is Friday.

We did go crazy today and sat around at the Starbucks in the lobby while waiting for our x-ray report, but don't worry, we were anti-germ.