Good Counts

Today's entry is to update two things: 1) Matthew's fantastic counts, and 2) The fantastic new Home Health nurse.

This week has been great! We switched Home Health companies last week, and it has been the best decision we could have made! They assigned their lead pediatric nurse for the area to us, and a lot of my friends from my support group said the same nurse takes or took care of their kids. And they all love her. I do too, she's great! Most importantly, she's organized, and will take care of our pharmacy needs for me, and she's confident. One of the other aspects of her job is that she is the nurse liaison between nursing and pharmacy - so she helps them all work well together, so she really understands the way their pharmacy works. I can't say how much I appreciate all of this.

She doesn't just want to come to do the little extra things they don't do up at the clinic - she actually wants to be an active participant in his health care. She wanted to be sure I was comfortable in administering his medicine at home, and to help us deal with it in any way that was needed. She gave me her cell phone number and said I could call her any time - day or night.

Also, she was SUPER comfortable with a Port. She said Matthew's Port sticks out well, and is easy to access. She preferred her own needle for it, because she said she could see what she was doing better with it, but it was the same needle with a different top. I figure we'll give it a try. She knows what she's doing. I think it'll be okay.

All in all, I now feel very positive about Home Health care in general. What a huge weight off my shoulders!

So, the nurse that came out yesterday took a CBC (Complete Blood Count) to see what Matthew's counts are, and it came back with great news. His ANC (Absolute Neutrophil Count - the infection fighting white blood cells) is 1300! It was 0 a week ago, so this is wonderful news! He has 7 more days before he gets anymore chemo, so we get to have some fun. I'm going to take him to visit the daycare - his favorite place in the world. It should be a great week!