Back to Hospital...

WEDNESDAY 16th NOVEMBER:

Joni-Mai had a good day, today. She had a visit from the community nurse to give her a dose of her G-CSF - the dreaded jab. G-CSF stimulates the production of white blood cells (WBC). In oncology and hematology, a recombinant form of G-CSF is used with certain cancer patients to accelerate recovery from neutropenia after chemotherapy, allowing higher-intensity treatment regimens.

After the nurse left, we quickly got ready to go into town for Daisy to go to Jo Jingles. Joni-Mai was thoroughly excited to be going to Jo Jingles and seeing her best friend's Mummy, Lynne. When we got there, she was a little subdued as there were lots of people in the hall, her nerves soon wore off and she was singing and dancing with the other children. She kept complaining that she was cold but, it was cold outside and I thought nothing of it. I cuddled her until she was warm again and she continued to play happily again.

Once we got home, Joni-Mai ate us out of house and home. A welcomed chenge to the refusal of food that we'd been enduring for weeks. Three lots of lunch, that's what she'd eaten! After her lunch, I took her temperature and it was slightly higher than it should have been, which set me off monitoring it hourly. Each hour that passed saw her temperature creep up a little higher and by a quarter to 6, her temperature had peaked up to 38 degrees. A no-no while she could possibly be neutropenic. Over the course of the hour, I monitored it further and the only change to be seen was increase, no decrease. This meant ANOTHER HOSPITAL TRIP FOR US!! We dropped Daisy to Gramma and went straight to our local hospital, Queen's (Romford). Once we arrived, we were put in a side room to stop Joni-Mai catching any nasties from any other children on the ward. After assessment, we were told - to EVERYONE'S surprise - that Joni-Mai's RBC (Red Blood Count) was 5.2 and she was needing a blood transfusion ASAP. She was also Neutropenic and had nothing at all in her blood to fight any infection and we were going to have to stay until she was better enough to go home! A side room was found on the inpatients ward "Tropical Lagoon" and a course of antibiotics was started.