08/16/2026
Well it’s been an eventful weekend.
Jensen met counts on Thursday… great! He was taken down to the OR for his spinal tap. After he was brought up, his results started rolling in. It was a “traumatic tap” meaning blood contaminated the sample. Along with blood, there were nucleated cells present and a pretty high protein count. This could be from the contamination or a sign of an infection in the spinal fluid, or leukemia cells inviting the central nervous system. They have a calculation to determine if the nucleated cells are a worry and the calculation made them believe there was no reason to worry but they planned to repeat the spinal tap on Monday. The next day the cytotechnologist took a look at the sample and determined a repeat was not necessary and that the numbers were caused by the bloody sample, not leukemia or infection. 😮💨
On top of this all Jensen was complaining of the puncture site hurting. They saw some bruising but decided to keep an eye on it and give him some Tylenol. After a while he started complaining of leg pain and not wanting to walk so they ordered an ultrasound on the lumbar puncture site. It looked good. Then he started to run a high fever (despite having Tylenol), elevated heart rate, and low blood pressure. Because Blina is running though his port, they had to start an IV in his hand. They took cultures and started the whole septic work up, even though a reaction to Blina could be the cause they still have to proceed with caution. The X-ray showed a small amount of inflammation in his airways (could still be an immune system response to Blina) and his respiratory panel was completely negative. Early the next morning, he ran fever again and he acted like it hurt to be moved so they went ahead and did a cat scan to verify the ultrasound findings and there were no concerned findings. Great news because I was starting to worry that the infection could be in the spinal fluid after all. They also changed his antibiotics to a broader one. Last night he started to fever again, a lower grade one, and they drew cultures again to make sure this isn’t a new unknown infection. Again, just being extra cautious. When they started running his antibiotics, he started crying in pain about his IV site. It was determined to be no good and removed. They had a flight medic come in and start a new IV in his other hand. So far no more fevers, but we’re still fighting some low blood pressures. The team just came in and said he’s on track to still leave Tuesday after they change his Blina bag as long as he has no more fevers and the cultures come back negative.
I guess I was a bit too confident after we had a great experience starting Blina last time and jinxed us this go round. I was thankful to be here with him through all of this and hate to leave him today, but Mama has to go back to work tomorrow so Nanny is coming to finish out his last couple of days here with no more issues hopefully! 🙏🏻 yall please just pray that nothing else goes wrong and these fevers are done and over with! 🧡🎗️
