Day 20 - Ups and Downs

Tyler had a better day on Sunday, thanks to a good night of sleep. Today (Monday) is a little bit down again. He's taking a nap now, in hopes of feeling a little bit better this afternoon or evening.

Test results from today are:

WBC: 2.56 (Normal 4.3-10.0)
HCT: 28% (Normal 38-50)
ANC: not in yet
PLT: 15 (Normal 150-400)

His schedule for the week looks pretty quiet, so hopefully that proves true. He's got lab draws only Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. Thursday is the day scheduled to see the doctors and the nutritionist.

The nutritionist is an important member of the team, as she helps us to come up with new ways to meet Tyler's needs. Our goal is to eat enough calories and enough protein each day. As it is still difficult to eat some things and he occasionally suffers nausea, Tyler is allowed (and encouraged) to eat the full calorie versions of any food every couple of hours.

Suggested items right now are smoothies (with milk powder and protein powder added in), soups, cottage cheese (which Tyler doesn't really like), ice cream, gravy, and Ensure/Boost supplements. I'm kind of envious sometimes as I make food for Tyler that I wish I had free rein with my calorie intake. Sadly, I'm not exercising nearly enough to eat butter on everything! But it's an interesting shift in thinking to think about getting more calories into every meal I make.