11/16/2009
by Sherrie Wells Hello to all of Brady’s readers, friends, and family. I hope you don’t mind me filling in again for Michael but it looks like he will be working late tonight. So let’s start at the beginning. This morning I had the drama of changing complete bed linens three times due to some seriously bad diarrhea. Poor child just can’t catch a break. It was determined that he can be moved from PICU to hematology/oncology because his “chicken pox” looked much better. The unfortunate news is that we are still in quarantine until the results of the swine flu tests come back. Hopefully, this will only be for another week. So, in the meantime, Brady is stuck in a small room trying to make the best of it. He looks at his red wagon, points and grunts. It just breaks my heart. Good news, he is officially off of the heart/oxygen monitor and the high flow oxygen. However, he still is hooked up to an IV round the clock. I get so nervous that he will get tangled up and pull it out. Also, since he is still teething, he puts the tubes in his mouth and chews on them. YIKES! We are trying to nip that in the bud quickly by giving him lots of toys to chew on. Brady continues to get fevers every four hours. The only things we can do are to give him Tylenol, dress him in just a light t-shirt, and to keep the room very cold. Last Sunday the doctor told me to expect him to stay sick with fevers for the next 25 days. So according to my calculations, on December 3rd Brady will be fever free. I bet he can’t wait! Right now Brady is taking a nap. The nurse needed to pre-medicate him with Benadryl and Tylenol to avoid an allergic reaction to the antibiotic being administered. This made him pretty sleepy! Well, I am going to call “room service” now for his dinner so that it arrives when by the time he wakes up. Once again, thank you for your thoughts, prayers, and hugs. P.S. Thank you to Dee Johnson for the wonderful chili and rice dinner. It was so thoughtful of you! It’s tempting to dig into it right now but I will wait for Mike to get here later tonight. 🙂“8 Years Later—Still No Cure for Pediatric Cancer” is a series of posts revisiting the journal kept by Sherrie and Michael Wells during the cancer diagnosis and treatment of their son, Brady Michael. Hopefully these entires will provide an understanding of the journey families face when dealing with these horrific diseases and of the important work the Hugs for Brady Foundation does.