The Last 24 hours!

Hi Everyone,

Our last 24 hours have been crazy. Jackson came down with a fever yesterday evening. He is at a point in his chemo cycle where his white counts should be trending up, but his CBC last night at the ER showed that he is still what they call neutropenic. This means that his body cannot effectively fight bacterial infections. So, he had to be admitted to UCSF last night. This is standard protocol for his situation. We had gone to Marian ER to figure out where his counts were and to do a blood culture. While they gave him two rounds of antibiotics, UCSF set up a transfer and sent their team down to pick him up. It was amazing how they got him up here. He had an ambulance transfer to Santa Maria Airport around midnight. We flew out of SM in a small private medical jet, and landed in SF an hour later. He had two flight nurse escorts from Marian to UCSF. We arrived at UCSF around 2am after another ambulance transfer from SF International to the hospital. He has had doctors following his progress all day. We are so amazed at the level of care he has received here. The ER doc last night was trying to insist that he would be admitted to Marian or Cottage, but I had told him of UCSF's protocol in this situation. I don't think he believed me until he spoke with the physician on call here. By that time his CBC had come back and they had already got the ball rolling on the transfer. I love the fact that they are not willing to take any chances with my sons health and we have complete confidence in his care here. So far today Jackson has not had a fever. They automatically keep him for 48 hours to make sure his fever doesn't come back and also they will not let him leave until his counts get up over 500. I am not sure how long we will be here, but hopefully not longer than the weekend. Thanks for following Jackson's progress through his long journey to a full recovery.

Jenise