Day +16: Moving right along!

The past 36 hours have been a good 36 hours. The docs continue to be impressed with Daylon's determination to live. Yesterday, was Daylon's first 24 hours off of the GCSF (basically fertilizer for cells). They typically take the patient off on day +28, but since his cells are reproducing so quickly, they took him off on day +14. Yep, we'll take that as a compliment! We were told not to be surprised if his cells dropped in half over night and it's been two days with a 1.5 point drop. Today his cells are 9.4 (avg. person 6.0-17.5) and the Absolute Neutrophil is 7.4 (avg. person .8-7.7). His in really great, healthy ranges!His bilirubin is down to 1.4 (0.2-1.3 avg) showing that his liver is starting to work again and the defibrotide is working! So far no scary side effects! Woo-hoo! His Creatinine is up a smidgen from yesterday. It's at .68 (.15-.53 is avg), so his kidneys are still a bit sick, but much better from earlier this week. No one is even mentioning dialysis anymore, and I'm sure not going to bring it up. :) His breathing has gotten a bit worse over the past few days, but the ventilator is still in place and doing it's job, so he hasn't been too bothered by it. Not to be too gross, but it is INSANE what is suctioned out of this poor little guy! Every time we get a new RT they go on and on about how thick and how much drainage there is to clean up. What a job! I say it's just Daylon getting them back for all the junk they've put him through the last few weeks. Okay, I'll stop my maniacal laugh! :) Moving on! His weight is up...AGAIN. They added one more diuretic to the list. Lets hope this one works. He has had like 2 wet diapers today, so that something. They've started to use his new G/J-tube and are inserting his feeds directly into his intestines. He's up to 10 ml and hour! Woo! A whole third of an ounce! He would laugh at them if he could. In all seriousness though, it is good that he's able to handle it so far, because it's showing us that his intestines still know what to do with food.

The doctors have talked this week about starting to get him off the ventilator around day +21 (next Thursday), and with any luck, he'll be completely off towards the end of next weekend. We're so excited to play with our little man!

His IV stand is now packing medicine and machines on both front and back!

Fairview hospital "Bye, Daylon!"


I feel so guilty about this, but this morning we left Daylon with his nurse, and headed out for a family picnic. Brian has being dying to take me to this spot he and the kids came across on a hike a few weeks back and today seemed like the perfect day. We packed a picnic and headed out to the other side of the Mississippi River (the River is like 1/4 mi. away). Brian drove us through the cutest neighborhood! This place is so beautiful! The homes are these cottages with the cute shutters and porches like something out of a movie. There are greenest mature trees that hang over the streets like these little welcoming tunnels. I wish I had my camera because I would be posting these homes all over this blog! We hiked a little trail that lead up to a meadow filled with flowers. The meadow was up on a small cliff that over looked the river. I can't get over everything that Minnesota has to offer! I love the beauty of Minnesota!... I hate the giant bugs and the cold!...but I love Minnesota! PS- sorry about the camera phone picture quality!

The trail up to the meadow

lunchtime!!

race ya back!