Jason Cotton's Blog

We apologize that there were no updates yesterday, it was a rather long and hard day on everyone. When Jason tore out his IV a bacterial infection was introduced into his blood stream, in his condition this caused him to go into respiratory distress and run a very high fever.  This was extremely bad timing because his system is so weak and his WBC’s are non existent.  He was immediately put on antibiotics and they tried to use Tylenol to help break the fever, since Jason is deathly allergic to aspirin.

Jason had an adverse reaction to the Tylenol and he was immediately moved to ICU and was treated for the reactions.  He did have a few complications.  Bea and I felt it would be best if one of us came back up here to be with him through this very rough stage of his recovery.  As things were and are looking we were unsure of the outcome.

The liquid that formed in his lungs has been getting worked out, but he still has a high grade fever combined with low BP and an erratic/high pulse.

For now he is as comfortable as we can make him and with the help of one of the techs I have his music playing.

We are making the posts so that his sister and family can concentrate on the important things, Jason’s health.  Keep them and Jason in your thoughts.

~Deb

Things have been quiet over the last day or so, Jason did have a set back last night having a pretty violent seizure.  Violent enough to pull out his IV and rip off several of the test leads monitoring him.  We don’t know the ramifications of the seizure are just yet since he still has not really woken up enough and be coherent enough to talk at length.

His RBC and WBC’s are on the move they are dropping and dropping rapidly, so our next hurtle is fast approaching.  His immune system will be non existent in a day or so at the rate things are going now.

We still don’t know the full effects of him coding for so long and again we won’t know until he wakes up.

Bea

Through last night Jason’s toxicity levels dropped drastically with the help of the life support systems.  This morning it was decided to remove him from some of the life support slowly.  First was the circulatory then the ventilator.  He is on Oxygen still but no longer intubated.  As he was taken off of each he was closely monitored for any relapses.

About 30 mins ago he was partially awake for a couple of mins, he is not fully coherent yet nor will he be for hours if not a couple of days.  Once he is coherent enough they neurologist will be running more tests to determine if he suffered from any brain damage from his coding.

We leave tonight to go home so updates will slow down drastically, both of us must return to work and now that we feel he is stable we think that he will be ok, he is in the best of care.  Deb will be turning his 800 number back over to the room phone and to send messages to him instead of her so if you want to talk to him use that number if you have it.

-Bea

The good news first everyone likes good news, I know that I do. Jason’s toxicity levels have dropped and are continuing to drop, with these dropping his system is not under as much stress and his BP has come up. So he is on the slow road to recovery, he is not out of the woods, remember we have the second portion of the chemotherapy to deal with. The effects of the chemotherapy, the death of all fast growing cells.

The bad news, Jason did code last night for a 4th time this treatment, though in comparison in Jason’s words it was nothing but a speed bump. He coded for 3 minutes so in comparison no where near as bad as the morning.

Also I want to make it clear that all of the tests thus far are inconclusive as to whether or not Jason suffered any brain damage or the extent of it. We won’t know full details until he wakes up. This is the waiting the human brain is one of the least understood parts of the human body.

Right now he is stable and improving.

-Bea

I am being asked to write an update because the girls are wiped right now.

Around 10:30 this morning Jason coded for a third time. They have him back up and he is on full life support now and being closely monitored. He was down for 49 minutes.  Neurology is currently running tests for brain damage.  He is also on dialisys to bring his toxicity levels down.

This is all the information I have at this time. I will post more (or the ladies will) as information becomes available.

-Jeremy