May 10, 2012

All through last weekend we were amazed over how wonderfully SD was doing. Even after his spinal and long, chemo-filled day last Thursday, nothing changed from our last report of him for several days. We kept expecting to see him lose energy or become moody or complain of pain or something, but he just stayed bright and energetic. We so enjoyed having our little boy back!

On Monday things started to take a turn; he's been acting rather strange, almost like he's on steroids. We think it might be the 6-TG. He frequently says "ow" but when he ask him about it, he won't give us any hints to what bothers him. He gets extremely upset over little things, often screaming or hitting over them, but if we keep things light and smile at him, he will often instantly turn around and smile back as though he was joking. It's odd.

SD's clinic appointment brought a couple pleasant surprises to us today. First, SD only received Pentamadine, so he had no chemo in-clinic. This made our stay into a quick three hour visit. The other surprise was that we aren't scheduled to go back for three weeks! We were thinking that the rest of the month would still be somewhat intense, but it turns out that all he has left to deal with this month is two chemo drugs taken at home. One is called ARA-C, which is the one we administer via his port; he will take that one tonight (Thursday) through Sunday. The other is 6-TG, of which he has one week remaining.

His counts are a little low, however, so we'll be getting them checked in Traverse City on Monday. One convenience to SD's remaining accessed for the ARA-C is that we can wait an extra day to take his needle out, allowing him to have his blood drawn in TC without an extra poke. If he does need a transfusion (his hemoglobin is about borderline right now), he'll already be set up for it. As long as he continues to do well, he won't need to return to DeVos until May 31. And...that will be the start of Interim Maintenance 2!