Update 4/8/09

On Monday we were given the news that Beckham's platelets had risen a small amount to 6. This was not overly good news, but we'll take what we can get. Because of this, his Rituxin dose was once again canceled and labs were planned again for Thursday.

Beck woke up early yesterday morning, with his face covered in crusted blood (not an abnormal event right now unfortunately) and I reached for him and headed downstairs to clean his face, get his meds, and wait until he could eat breakfast (he has to wait a half hour after meds to eat). As we finally sat down for breakfast I pondered over my "clinically healthy"," but "serverally ill" child. It has been over a month and three treatments later and his platelets are lower than he begin with. Beckham, who acts perfectly well (despite his bruised appearance), is still very ill and unstable, with no end in site. It is hard not to feel that our lives are back to normal with being home, but then I look at my helmet head and remember that he is supposed to be in the hospital, not at home eating cereal and making me laugh. I had to quickly grab my camera and take a video of our little guy just to document how fun and normal he acts.

As the afternoon wore on, Beck's lip started to bleed. Again, this is not an abnormal event (even a small cracker seems to cut his mouth open), but this time I could not seem to get the bleeding under control. After 1, 2, and 3 hours of bleeding (active bleeding), I decided that something had to be done and I called his HH nurse, who advised me to take him to the ER for a dose of platelets - which his body will just eat up, but they will give him just enough boost to stop his bleeding. I went to grab Beck and found him sound asleep on Gwen.

SO CUTE! What was even more cute was the fact that Gwen was allowing this.

I rushed Gwen to a friends house and then Beck and I made our way to the ER, where we were immediately rushed back (thanks to the fact the EVERYONE knows Beckham in the ER) to a room. By this time Beck's lip had magically stopped bleeding (seriously, go figure!), resulting in me feeling stupid for bringing him into the ER in the first place (the doctors told me that I should not feel stuipid because Beckham is truly sick and needs to be in the hospital). Labs were then taken (luckily he has his PICC line so he did not need to get poked) and tests were run, showing that his platelets had dropped down to 1. This was not a huge shocker given his extra bruised, petechiae covered body, and his endless bleeding from his mouth (the nose is taking a break from bleeding right now...how thoughtful!). And after a couple of hours and some smooth talking on my part - convincing them that even though he needs to be in the hospital he is just as safe at home - we were able to go home.

It looks like labs will be drawn again on Thursday and then we will make the trip to Iowa City on Tuesday for Rituxin. I can't see anyway of avoiding this medication now, because dispite the risk it poses for him, the fact remains that he needs it. We'll do what's best for Beck.