July 28th Update:
Today Isaac had his 33rd chemo treatment. His counts from retreat had almost doubled compared to last week!
The doctor did notice Isaac's lymph nodes were enlarged. We are hoping it's just a late effect from the virus he had a week ago but we did a urine sample just to be sure. That was interesting with a 2 year old! ;-) Isaac was not thrilled about it but as soon as i told him he could pee standing up he was all for it and filled up almost the whole cup. Luckily we got through it but it was slightly on the "messy" side. Haha
Next week is already Isaac's next MRI. So we will travel back to the University of Iowa for the test and then we'll get his next dose of chemo there as well.
July 21st Update:
Isaac went in for his 32nd week of chemo this morning. Because of his fever/ER visit earlier in the week they took more blood today to double check they were still high enough. After a long wait they came back. They did dramatically decrease and were just barely good enough to still get chemo. But hey we'll take it. So while the pharmacy got his meds ready Isaac and I went down stairs and get a snack. Isaac choose chocolate milk. :-) go figure
Isaac has waited really well today and got to play with his favorite child life specialist... Kathy!
July 19th Update:
Yesterday evening Isaac started having a low grade fever. He seemed fine all day but then randomly started throwing up around 5 or 6. So i then took his temp... It was below the threshold for having to take him in right away so instead we kept checking it every hour. It had gone down at first and we were really hoping it would stay down but then at bed time (of course) we take it again and it has jumped up a whole degree and was at the "take him to the hospital right away" limit. Errr! So we packed up and headed for the ER.
This of course is at the end of one of the worst days ever. I (mom) had not been feeling well all day and think threw up 10 different times through out the day. Dad wasn't feeling the greatest either but what do you do?!?! Thankfully i finally was able to keep some medicine in my system right before that so i thought I'd be OK to come to the hospital with the boys as i was beginning to feel "slightly" better. Nope, wrong choice Allison. Right after his port access at the hospital i had to give Isaac to dad so i could go throw up again. Then on top of that one of the medicines i had taken had sleeping medicine in it which was causing me to barely be able to keep my eyes open. We were probably a sight to see. From a outside perspective one would have thought i was the reason for the hospital visit. Isaac just did great. It was so late but he just sat on the bed like a big boy playing with his superheros and watching mickey mouse.
Isaac's blood counts were thankfully high enough. So they gave him some antibiotics which ran over 30 minutes and cultered his blood then we got sent home. Thank the LORD! We got home a little after 11. Of course i start throwing up right when i get home and Isaac needed his mom to put him to bed. This delayed bed time even more. Luckily by the time i got myself put back together and off of the bathroom floor, Isaac went down pretty well. Thank the Lord for his extra dose of strength he gave us at different moments throughout the day. Can't do it without Him!
Isaac slept in till 8:30 today and was fever free! Praying we all stay away from more sickness.
July 14th Update:
Week 31 was today! Isaac's daddy, Nick, got to join us today at the appointment. This was the first Thursday daddy has had off since we've transferred to Blanks in Des Moines, so it was nice for him to be able to meet everyone that takes such his care of Isaac. Isaac did wonderful as usual.
July 7th Update:
After missing counts for 2 straight weeks Isaac finally got his week 30 chemo. We stuck to the 50% dose. It's a slightly longer appointment today as he was also due for his monthly antibiotics. He has been doing great though. Such a trooper!
June 30 Update:
This post is a week late. Whoops.
Isaac continued to struggle with his blood counts. At Wednesdays appointment he was still neutrapenic. So we brought him into the hospital on Thursday evening to have a nurse give him his "booster shot". This helps his body make more neutrophils. The plus side is that mom and dad didn't need to administer the shot themselves. The down fall is that this medicine has a negative side effect.... Bone Pain!. Poor Isaac definitely suffered from this that night. It was well past midnight before we got him to bed because he was in so much pain. Then he was up a number of times through out the night. This broke mama's heart. It's heart breaking to try to console your child when there is nothing you can do to help. I so wanted to be able to take away the pain but nothing worked. :-( Luckily when he woke up in the morning the pain had gone and he was back to normal (although mom was a tad tired) ;-)
