Day 6

Last night Lisa left Paige for the first time to get a good night's sleep at home while I did the night shift. The room Paige is in has a single fold-down bed for one of us to sleep on, as well as an ensuite. It's really luxury compared with being on the ward and is usually given to patients who are a) infectious and need to be isolated, or b) vulnerable to infection and need to isolated. First-time families (such as us) are given any spare ones to help ease the transition into this new life of ours. I imagine that, once Paige becomes a regular, we will be on the ward again.

Her stats are monitored continuously - four-hourly BP and temperature, blood tests at regular intervals - so there is the danger that she gets woken up in the middle of the night. Yet last night she was an angel: smiled sweetly at the nurse and went back to sleep. Result! Now if I could only organise a good fried breakfast...

Update: Paige's white blood cell (WBC) count is down to 32 (x 1000)!  It was well over 100 last week so this is good news. She has been on a saline drip since she was admitted and it has obviously done the job. This means that (1) we can reduce the amount of saline being administered, and (2) the impact on her kidneys is reduced. Apart from the saline, for the last week she has been taking a drug to help her kidneys deal with the reduction of the WBC. She has also been on steriods since she had the Central Line put in and she is responding well to those too. Unfortunately they taste terrible and she is getting wise to all of our tricks!