Temperature's up again

This was Sigve yesterday:

And today:

Everything in life goes up and down, and so does this.

Sigve is feeling much less energetic today, and he's mostly dosing off. He felt very energetic last night, and finally fell asleep at 6 am, so he was allowed to sleep in this morning. He got up for a shower at about 1 pm. He showers every day, changes all his clothes, ie. underware and pyjamas, and his bed linnens are also changed every day.

His temp is up to 40.6C/105F (normal at this stage, as he has no immune defence system at all right now), and he's getting more blood, antibiotics and nutrition, and the Sandimun (to prevent "graft-versus-host-disease") that he gets every day at 4 pm, through Hicky now, and then as pills later for up to 1 year.

I'm sitting here watching Sigve sleep, and thinking how strange it is to see him in this situation. Up until 1 year ago, when he had the leg infection that turned out to be how the leukemia was discovered, he had never been sick, except for one night in hospital years ago with some stomach cramps, and the odd cold and flu. And I guess it's the abruptness of the situation that is weird. We've known for a few months that he would have to have the transplant, but he never felt sick! And we have often commented on how strange it is to have to be made very sick to get well. But I guess sometimes it's like that, it gets worse before it gets better! So far I have found it easy to stay strong; sometimes drawing on Sigve's strength, as things have been going so well. He has always had this amazing ability to be able to adapt to any situation, and make the best of it. He told me that when he was told that he probably had leukemia, his immediate reaction was a feeling of gratitude for how good his life has been up to now, and a determination not to let the decease put a damper on whatever time he had left. A lot of us would probably start off with feeling sorry for ourselves...

A nurse just came in with another bag of blood. As his own "blood factory", his stem cells that have been killed by chemo, isn't working any more, and the new ones haven't settled and started work yet, he needs these refills.

And just now a doctor came by, and explained that he's being given increased doses of broad spectered antibiotics to deal with the high temperature. They had had to start off carefully to see if his kidneys could handle it, and test results showed that they could. They also changed the fungus medication to a different type, as the mouth fungus could also cause a raised temperature.

So far many of the nurses have been summer helps, and it seems like they didn't all know all the regular rules and routines for isolation. More regular nurses are back from their holidays now, and things seem more organized.

I got my Mac back today! It is mine, my preciousssss!

- Most of this was written while I was sitting in Sigve's room today. Now I have spent a nice quiet evening with Brita and Ketil. Tomorrow morning I'm off to Halhjem to pick up Hilde Marie. We'll do some shopping, and visit Sigve.

Today I am grateful for:

*Doctors who speak understandably

*A quiet evening in front of a TV

*All your prayers!