July 23, 2012

It's hard to believe such a long time has gone by without an update from us! Sorry we've gotten so behind!

First, a quick followup from our last update: we took SD back that Thursday (July 12th), and his counts were great - easily enough to take the rest of his chemo.

SD really enjoyed playing Mario Power Tennis this time. He's noticed that game on previous visits, but this time he spent quite a while playing it with Mommy!

Our clinic visit went very smoothly. SD's counts were high enough to get all the chemo he needed to finish this phase, so on our next visit he will start maintenance!

As a reminder, maintenance is about three years long with monthly clinic visits. Also, we will be able to go to Traverse City for most of those visits; our trips to Grand Rapids will go down to once every three months. This will help with the gas expense!

During maintenance, SD will receive IV chemo once a month (Traverse City and Grand Rapids), IT chemo once every three months (Grand Rapids only), and oral chemo every day (at home). The maintenance phase lasts about three years for boys, so - Lord willing - SD will be done with chemo right around his sixth birthday.

We are excited about this milestone in his treatment! Big thanks to everyone who has helped him get to this point - God bless you!

July 9, 2012

Today SD was supposed to get one type of chemo in a spinal tap and two other types of chemo through his port. Unfortunately, his blood counts came back too low, so they decided to only do the spinal tap and keep the other chemo until Thursday.

SD was quite chipper this morning, and led us from the Renucci House all the way across the hospital to clinic. He remained cheerful until it was time to access his port; then the hunger and loss of sleep got to him and he took the poke much harder than usual. He continually asked for food until he was sedated, which was quite a bit later than usual today, and seemed exhausted after the extremely late night he had last night.

We hated having to wake him after sedation, and he wasn't happy about it, either! But we had grapes and pineapple on hand for when he awoke, which he hungrily put down in spite of not having all his coordination back yet. He had an emotional time for the remainder of our stay in clinic, which fortunately did not last long. We got our appointment for Thursday, SD picked out a water gun from the prize box, he was de-accessed, and then we met Grandma, Uncle Cory, and Emma in the library downstairs. Once SD was able to fill his tummy, he fell asleep for the rest of the trip and was much happier this afternoon.

Please pray for SD's counts to get back up by Thursday. It would be great if we could finish this phase of chemo in July!