Cycle 1, Day +22: No Room At The Inn

It looks like Steven's next bone marrow transplant will be delayed for a few days.

We found out late Friday afternoon that there are no beds available at the hospital right now. We knew that at the time Steven was admitted for fever two weeks ago, we waited 7 hours for a room to become available and we were told we might have to go to Le Bonheur, a nearby hospital, but thankfully a bed did become available for us.

The cold and flu season, combined with a high population of kids at St. Jude with compromised immune systems has contributed to the bed shortage, in addition, their bone marrow transplant program is growing and it is not certain that they have enough beds to accomodate the expansion (58 beds total right now).

The little boy undergoing the same treatment as Steven who was four days ahead of him will be admitted tomorrow night, having been scheduled to be admitted two days ago on Thursday night. Since they only admit bone marrow transplant patients on Sundays and Thursdays, Steven is currently set to be admitted to the hospital the evening of Thursday February 5, to start chemo Friday February 6.

I was curious to see how he would take the news of a delay. If he was going to have an IV put in, and he heard that it had been delayed, I believe he'd be happy for any delay, regardless of the consequences. I was wondering how he would feel about having chemo delayed, given how sick he had been during his first round.

Steven was disappointed, he realizes the length of our stay in Memphis will be increased with any delay, and he wants to get his treatment over with so he can get on with his life.

We ended up cancelling our plans for a Nashville trip due to Doug's work obligations and the fact that until late Friday afternoon, we had a 9:00 am appointment scheduled Sunday morning to check Steven out before his Sunday night admission to the hospital.

So, the good news is we have a few days "off". We went to Putt-Putt today, a place kind of like Boomer's, where they have miniature golf, go-karts, rides, a driving range, and an arcade. Later we went to a movie, tomorrow we may go to the zoo, and we won't be watching the Super Bowl from a hospital room.

A bump in the road, but Steven is feeling well and life is good.

- Kathleen