Day 14 & 15

Nick has gradually felt a little better each day.  His mouth and throat are still quite painful, but he sleeps ok at night and does his walking laps as required for recovery.  Taking meds is difficult, but in typical "Nick fashion", he pushes himself to complete the task.  WBC was .83 yesterday, and WBC is .97 today.  When the doc came through for morning rounds, she said he may be "discharged to stay close by" on Tuesday.  This depends on how the blood counts continue to "trend" and if the ANC count is high enough.  Yes, I'm going to throw another blood count number at you.  The ANC is the "Absolute Neutrophil Count".  These are the baby white blood cells that help to fight bacterial infections.  A healthy person's ANC is above 2500.  Nick's is 370 as of today, Day 15.  The ANC must be at least 500 for a "discharge to stay close by".
Once we are "discharged to stay close by", we still cannot go home.  Moffitt makes it mandatory that we stay somewhere less than 20 minutes from the hospital for 2-4 more weeks.  This is due to the low counts, compromised immune system, and emergencies that can develop.  We're still working on where we will go since our home is 35-45 minutes away, but we will probably be at the Moffitt apartment housing or a local hotel.  During this period of time, Nick will have daily appointments at Moffitt and I (as Caregiver) or Jon (as back-up Caregiver) will be with him 24/7 until they "discharge us home".  Basically, Nick will not be able to be in public without a mask, drive, work, or travel until the doctor gives him the "OK".  We know that we still have a long road ahead, and Moffitt has been very good to us, but we are happy to be moving on to the next step in this process.  We so wish we were going home, but we will follow the doctor's advice to give Nick the best chance at a full recovery.  For those of you following the counts, here are the numbers for Day 14 and 15: