The night of April 26th, after his 7th chemo treatment, he started displaying fever like symptoms with chills, but his temperature was still in the normal range. Then it spiked really quickly up to 102. We called the on-call oncologist at Huntsman and she told us he needed to be admitted to the hospital at Huntsman. She told us to wait for her to call us back and she'd let us know what room they had ready for him and then we could drive up. We anxiously waited and drove to the hospital when we got the call.
Admitted to the hospital. They drew his blood for labs so they could see if an infection in his blood was causing the fever. Judd's fever was consistently high the first few hours we were there. Our good friend, Jordan Hyde, had class at the U of U and we asked him to come give Judd a blessing when he got out of class. Within half an hour after the blessing his fever broke and was back down to normal. It was a tender mercy of Heavenly Father and another one that we were able to know that He was there for us answering our prayers.
Selfie game was strong while we killed some time in his room.
The view from Judd's room that evening. The views at Huntsman really are incredible and allow you to see the work of God. We love these little reminders of Heavenly Father and His goodness.
Our dinner date in the hospital room.
There's a cool terrace you can walk around behind the hospital.
Judd loves his Raisin Bran! Out of all the food and cereals on the menu he picked this. I don't know why I was so surprised haha.
Sweet reminders of all of the support we have behind us.
Judd got sick of the hospital bed and wanted to try my cot by the window. There was no infection in his blood, which was very good news, so they took a urine sample and a chest x-ray to see if they could find infection anywhere else. Both of those test came back negative. However, his white blood cell count was so low. They told us a normal white blood cell count is 1.3 and Judd's was 0.3 making him very vulnerable to sickness. They gave him injections to boost his white blood cells so he would be ready to start Round 2 on May 2nd.
Judd's white blood cell count bounced back up after the injections and we were able to go home on April 28th! Judd says the whole hospital stay was worth it for the big mug ;)
When we left the hospital Judd had terrible back pain. The doctor's thought it could be from laying in the uncomfortable hospital bed for a few days combined with the side effects of the injections boosting his white blood cells. Since all of his labs and x-ray came back normal we were sent home. That night no medicine was relieving his back pain. He said he hardly slept that night because the pain was so terrible when he laid on his back. We called the hospital again in the morning and they had us come in to their clinic. We were there all day for tests and a CT scan. They found out Judd had a blood clot in his lung. Judd and I were emotionally preparing ourselves for another hospital stay. The oncologist came in and told us he would not be admitted. Apparently blood clots are very common in chemo patients and the clots can be managed at home with Lovenox injections in the belly twice a day. People who know me know needles make me super nervous, but Judd is so shaky it would be very difficult for him to do the injections on his own. Judd and I both got brave and he let me give him the injections. They aren't fun for him, he describes the feeling as a bee sting, but we are very grateful for the medicine and that the clot wasn't as serious as it could've been.
We found a new spot to go on walks by our house and we were excited to walk with Judd's parents through the trees and by the little pond.
Got our walk in. We were nervous, but ready to start Round 2 the next day.
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