Wahoo, labs and meds

Wahoo #1 is over his great lab results today. First, a basic blood chemistry lesson. It will probably make zero sense (the way I explain it) to you, but I think I've finally wrapped my brain around it.

Hematocrit = amount of red blood cells in the blood (should be between 37.0 and they worry when it's below 25)

Platelets = the cells in the body that make blood clots (should be between 150-400) Ty's are almost always high and we've only had easy bleeding once. His platelets were 99, that's very low for him, but isn't usually considered low enough to worry about

WBC = White Blood Cells, the infection-fighting cells in the blood and tissues. When these are low, resistance to infection is lowered. (should be between 4.5-13.0) When it is low, they also look at the ANC

ANC - Absolute Neutrophil Count, these help fight bacterial and fungal infections (should be between1.8-8.0, they worry when it is .7 or lower)

Ty's labs, drawn yesterday, were:
Hematocrit 27
WBC 9.8
ANC 9.1
Platelets 492

Overall, he is looking good. If his hematocrit drops lower, he may need a transfusion. His coloring is good and he isn't acting tired, so I'm assuming he'll be fine. He is acting very agitated - stressed out. The nausea is trying to become a bigger problem this time, but we are fighting it with everything we've got. For the agitation, we end up playing Queen's "We Will Rock" to distract him. The effect is starting to wear off, please send any song suggestions with great beats our way.

Wahoo #2 is over finishing his IV antibiotics. This means the last IV medicine he needs is at 11 p.m. and the last g-tube medicine is at midnight vs. finishing up at 1-1:30 am. Now he might actually get some quality sleep. This is a pic of one of his IV meds. We clean his line, flush with saline, and hook this puppy up, it is pressurized and delivers an even dose. An hour later, we flush with saline again, and then a heparin flush.