A rough 24

Rob is at the hospital with Steven tonight. Steven has had a rough go of this round. Last night he was throwing up worse than he ever had. This was supposed to be the easy chemo!!! What happened? Not only that, but he isn't clearing the methotrexate as fast as he has in the past. My Easter-at-home dreams are slipping away. I won't give up hope yet, who knows what the morning will bring?

I hope it brings a methotrexate level low enough that he can have a transfusion tomorrow. I suspect that his low red blood cell counts aren't helping our situation here. Maybe new blood can solve some problems. I tried to help him do homework this morning, but he had such a hard time concentrating, he was even crying. It broke my heart because he cries so rarely. So we stopped homework and I gave him the Ipad. Somehow he manages to concentrate on that.

And then there is me. I'm not a big crier either, but today has been rough. I can't go 20 minutes without breaking down into tears. It is so hard to see him suffer, and so hard to see other people suffer. It's going to be an Ambien night for sure--my mind is racing over statistics and treatments and the future and the present.

The highlight of my day was taking the girls to the hospital to see Steven. They loved seeing the place we always talk about--"at the hospital." They even got to see the life-flight helicopter land out Steven's window. As we were getting ice from the ice machine, Laura said, "The hospital is so so so fun." As she said this, a bald and sickly little girl about her age was pulled past her in a wagon. I don't think Laura saw, but the contrast just struck me and I cried, again. I don't think "fun" is the word I would use.

Doing well

Steven has done really well with this last round of chemotherapy. He came home Sunday evening and was begging to go to a family dinner, so I took him. He loved being around him cousins and other family, although even Grandma's great cooking couldn't entice him to eat. He does have some nausea, but so far he hasn't thrown up at all--at home or at the hospital.

We are having to give him shots of GMCSF every day. This is a drug that will help his white blood cell counts to recover faster. As I had never given a shot before, this has been a little dramatic. I won't go into details, it was kind of embarassing. But here is a hint--I had to stick him twice and I ended up getting sticking myself in the process. I did better today--maybe there is hope for me yet.

And another weekend awaits

Tomorrow morning we've got another round of chemo coming. Steven will have a dose of Cisplatin and Doxorubicin over the course of 48 hours. These are the same ones he had the very first time he had chemo--the ones that make him very nauseated and eventually bring his counts down really low. This time he says he doesn't want to take any of the drugs that make him sleepy--he wants to play the iPad. We'll see. The nurses and doctors really try hard to control the nausea. They worry about anticipatory nausea. One nurse told me about a patient who saw his nurse at the grocery store and threw up in the aisle. I don't know about Steven, but I guarentee that I've got anticipatory nausea tonight.