Well, after nine days in the hospital, Peter was finally allowed to come home this morning. Hooray! We've only been home for about 3 hours so far, but it already feels much different than staying at the hospital - just having the whole family together, starting to settle back into the routine of regular bed times in our normal beds ... very comforting. So that's the good news. The bad news is that Peter's platelet counts still have not gone up. <sighs> Some of you are probably wondering: "Why did they let him go home from the hospital, then?" Well, for the last several days at the hospital, Peter has basically only had two things done to him: he gets two mouthfuls of prednisone (which is grape flavored, so he loves it) every day and he gets a blood test every other day or so. The other 23.5 hours of the day, we are just waiting. So the doctors decided that we can just give him the medicine at home and bring him in to the hospital when he needs a blood test (since we live about five miles from the hospital).
The final deciding factor in sending Peter home is that he remains free from the major complications associated with Evans. [Note: I am not going to say what those complications could be, because they will freak you out. If you must know more, just look at the Wikipedia pages for ITP and AIHA.] In fact, the doctor commented yesterday that, low platelets aside, Peter was the least sick kid on the entire 6th floor. We view this as a tremendous blessing and thank God for keeping Peter safe so far.
Peter's current course of prednisone is slated to continue through Monday. We then have an appointment on Tuesday to evaluate if the steroids seem to be working. They haven't made an impact so far - but doctors will make the final call on Tuesday. At that point, we'll discuss next steps for his treatment.
In the meantime, please join us in praying that God would continue to protect Peter. In all the discussions with the doctors about coming home, the theme was "the counts aren't everything". The primary objective is that Peter is healthy. So please join us in praying for his health - even if his counts don't go up this week, this month, this year ... we don't care as long as he stays healthy.
OK. Time to go to sleep in our own beds.
I am so grateful that you all were able to come home. I love your family and I am so glad I know you all.
ReplyDeletePraying for Peter and all the Van Voorhises.
ReplyDeleteSo glad that he is continuing to thrive despite the arrows of the enemy.
ReplyDeleteAnd I LOVE the name of the blog. Nothing but the blood, indeed.
Yay! I'm glad you all have been able to come home! Having stayed at Children's Hospital before I know it's an awesome place to be (if you have to go), but there is still no place like home.
ReplyDeleteI continue to pray for you all. :)
Love you guys and praying hard!
ReplyDeleteNeff and Jelly
Every day cousin Bradley asks, "How's Peter?". When I was finally able to answer that with, "He came home." Bradley said, "Horray! So his platelets are 20,000?" His excitment was less when I said, "No." I had been anxious about Peter coming home with that low of plateles but I seem to have some peace with him being home. So we pray that you have that peace too! Let me know when you need my leg again to update his picture:) I just love that picture!
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