This is Sue. On Thursday, I was out for most of the morning and got home around 1 p.m. Joe was doing his physical therapy downstairs and came up the stairs and said he was really tired. We ate lunch and he said that he took a nap at 11 am, which is unusual. He told me he slept really well last night and didn’t wake up coughing for 6 hours. I disagreed – he coughed all night. At one point he was coughing so hard that I felt his forward to see if he had a temperature, but he didn’t. He didn’t remember that at all. He continued coughing through lunch and his cheeks were rosy. I decided to take his temperature. It was 101.1 and I said that we should call the clinic. He said no so I told him I would give him 5 minutes and we would take his temperature again. It was 100.8 and he agreed to call. We talked to the triage nurse and she said to go to Urgent Care, which I thought was strange, but we did as we were told. Anoka had the shortest wait so we headed up there.

We waited about an hour and saw a PA. His blood pressure was a little high, but his heart rate was 105, when his normal is closer to 65. The PA was very honest after reading Joe’s health history and told us he didn’t feel comfortable treating him due to the complexity of his health. He sent us to the emergency room, which is where I had originally wanted to go, but followed the advice given us. The PA told us the hospital could get blood test results and all of the other test results much quicker than he could. So, we headed to Methodist Hospital.

When we arrived, the emergency room was busy, but they called Joe in and sent him out several times for vitals, blood tests, and EKG. After a couple of hours, he finally got a room in ER and the doctor was concerned. He immediately told us that Joe would be staying overnight – his white blood cell, red blood cell, and hemoglobin was low and his heartrate was high. He ordered a CT scan with contrast and then we had a new doctor. She repeated that Joe would be staying overnight and would contact Dr. Blazar with the CT results. His lungs were clear and there were not any major concerns. They assume that Joe has a virus because no infections showed up – no Covid or any variants, no RSV, no flu etc. He was considered neutropenic, meaning suspectable to infection. Their main concern was that he was borderline sepsis – which can be life threatening.

The nurse said that he might not get a room in the hospital that night so I left at 11 pm. It was a very long day. He got a room at 1:30 am. They had taken blood tests again Friday morning and his white blood cell (WBC) count went up .1, but his red blood cell (RBC) count and his hemoglobin was lower. His ANC (absolute neutrophil count) was .1 and they like to see it closer to .5. His cough improved slightly that day. An oncologist and the hospital doctor both visited and said he was staying another night.

Saturday morning, he had more blood tests and we saw slight improvement in his WBC, RBC, hemoglobin and ANC. He was released from the hospital today.

Please pray for improvement and comfort for Joe. I was exhausted last night and was able to sleep well, especially since there was no coughing next to me! We are praying that improvement continues and that it will be a VERY long time before we visit the hospital again.

In His hands,

Sue