Big Mouth Strikes Again ...

"Bigmouth, la ... bigmouth, la ...
Bigmouth strikes again"

How's your morning been? I've been up, put some washing on, made breakfast, unpacked a family-of-five sized home shopping delivery … and tried to cancel Adam's flight home (which, incidentally, failed because my name doesn't appear on the booking anywhere).

Did I tell you last time that Adam was coming home today? Well Adam's not coming home today.

You know that phrase "don't count your chickens before they are hatched"? Well I counted my chickens before they were hatched. And then at just past midnight this morning I got a call from Alison to say that Adam had spiked a fever of 39.3°. She was pretty much all packed and ready to go, all the necessary correspondence was done with the airline to allow Adam to fly, all the necessary paperwork was in place to allow his medications to be brought into the UK … and then he spiked a fever of 39.3°.

Now it could be the cytarabine that Adam is back on during cycle two (of which yesterday was day 4). It's most probably the cytarabine; his neutrophils earlier yesterday were a lowly 0.49, although both his Hb and Platelets had edged a little higher which meant no transfusions necessary. But the protocol in the US is the same as the UK. A fever above 38.5° (and let's face it 39.3° is more than just a teensy bit over) means admittance to the hospital, blood cultures and prophylactic antibiotics. So after getting off the phone with me Alison took Adam up to the Emergency Room so he could get admitted to Helen De Vos Children's Hospital overnight.

I honestly couldn't make this stuff up. Seven weeks in Michigan and the first night Adam earns himself an inpatient stay in the hospital is the night before he's finally due to fly home! Needless to say he won't be flying back today after all; chances are he'll be feeling the same again this evening, but at least now there's a 3 day break before we're due to restart cytarabine. If it is actually an infection we'll have to wait for that to clear - we should know one way or the other in the next 48 hours. Hopefully he won't be in for too long as every day will probably cost us a few thousand dollars, although that's the least of our worries obviously. The bottom line is there's no way we'd put Adam through a 3 hour car journey and 8 hour flight until we're sure he's ready to travel, and certainly not when he's feeling rubbish.

I broke the news to the others this morning; Jake was very "oh, well" and "does this mean you can take me to football on Sunday morning now?". Jessica was more subdued, but ok about it really. My kids are pretty tough. Jess did tell me later that she'd got her best clothes ready to wear tomorrow when they came home; she was very matter-of-fact about it, but it did make me a little sad.

Hopefully, Alison and Adam will finally make it home before long. This is the … ahem … fourth time we've cancelled and re-booked return flights. I won't be telling you when they're booked for now. I won't be telling you when everything's in place for Adam to fly (all the approvals, paperwork etc. need repeating). I won't be telling you when they're about to leave for the airport. I won't be telling you when they've taken off.

I won't be telling you anything until they're finally home and safely through the front door …