Eli came down with a fever on Sunday, so we got to make a trip to the emergency department at the hospital since he still has a port. They had people inside the entrance to greet us with questions about symptoms and pump hand sanitizer on our hands and give out masks for those who needed one.

The oncologist, who I spoke with on the phone prior to going, called ahead to let them know we were coming. Once we got to the front of the registration line (it wasn’t long, but the person in front of us had a cough and high fever), they realized who we were and whisked us to the triage room as quickly as possible.

Eli’s vitals in triage were a little concerning, so we got whisked to a respiratory room where we were greeted by several gowned/gloved/masked/goggled care providers. Things calmed down after a bit, samples were sent to the lab, chest xrays were taken, and they discussed with us their desire to test him for COVID19.

There are no cases of COVID19 at Primary Children’s hospital right now, so that was interesting to discover. The doctor who requested that Eli be tested is expecting a negative result, but feels like they have been under testing and, since Eli is immunocompromised and has a couple symptoms, decided it was worth doing the test (results came back negative yesterday). They did test for other viruses and tested positive for RSV. After a clear chest xray, we went home. Eli has been improving since then.

I called yesterday to reschedule Eli’s port removal surgery, but was told that since he had RSV, the policy is to wait six weeks before surgery involving anesthesia. I admit to feeling a little upset about all these roadblocks popping up here at the end of treatment. When I broke the news to Eli, he was quite put out.

I called his oncologists to see if we couldn’t safely shrink the wait for surgery. They will discuss the matter with the anesthesiologist and get back to us in the next couple of days.

We just want normal.