Day 1 - Chemo

The doctors decided to split day one into two days to ease our sweet boy into the world of full blown Chemotherapy. It’s hard to wrap our heads around the idea that poisoning our son will make him better, but that’s really what it is...

He really hates his oral Prednisone (the steroid) medicine, and actually gagged so hard he threw up this evening. We have to try again in a few hours when he wakes up to go to the bathroom – I hope that with him half asleep he won’t fight it too hard.

Eric and Alex are sleeping, so I thought I would catch everyone up on the day.

We completely forgot to order food for Alex’s breakfast this morning– I’m sure we weren’t the first parent to forget this – so, we got a breakfast anyway – he ate the whole pancake, and a few bites of oatmeal, and was done – his appetite has not come up yet.

Our friend Deb visited this morning, bringing some cool Scooby Doo stuff, and some food. Thank you again! While Deb was visiting, an a capella group came in and started singing Disney songs for the kids - they were great, and Alex was very intrigued! (It was a very Srubs moment for those of you who follow that TV show...)

About 11am, we started the Chemo in his IV – the Daunorubicin is bright red, and made his urine red too. It also causes nausea – here we go! The Vincristine was put in next. Alex just played and ignored it all…

During lunch (which I had managed to order), Melissa and Rob stopped by with Alex’s buddy, their son Chandler, and their new baby boy Lincoln.

Eric took a much deserved trip down the hill (for those of you who don’t know, Doerenbecher hospital is in the hills over Portland) to check in at work, and stop by the house. While he was gone, Alex and I went to the awesome playroom, where the fabulous volunteers were doing art projects (clay, beads, painting, masks, etc.) Alex was making a really cool clay snake when Uncle Nick and Aunt Sierra walked in. Boy, Alex sure was excited to see them – he hid under the table for a few minutes – he gets easily overwhelmed lately (who can blame him!) After a few minutes, Alex was playing with the great John Deere tractor that they got for him!

A few minutes later, nurse Heidi (aka Han Solo) came to tell us that it was time to go back to the room and do another blood draw. Well, we got back to the room, and Alex had a meltdown. I’ve never seen him so upset and aggressive. I know it’s the steroids, and it is still hard to recognize my sweet boy in that face so contorted with anger, frustration, fear, and confusion. After some deep breaths, and calm voices, he relaxed, and let Heidi take the blood out of his PICC line (the semi-permanent IV) so there were no pokes, no owies. After that, he was my sweet funny boy again, building his train track, and showing Uncle Nick how to do it.

Soon after, Eric came back with more track for his train set, and we had to move back to the playroom for a table big enough to make a good track.

After Alex ate dinner (again, we forgot to order, but they gave us something anyway…) and a great visit, Uncle Nick and Aunt Sierra followed me down the hill back to our house, and I was able to eat dinner with them, which was nice. Then, I headed back here, and Eric told me that Alex had a really hard time taking his medicine, and that more medicine was due at 9pm, so no early bedtime for Alex!

After Alex threw up at 9pm from the Allopurinol (binds to the uric acid from the dead cancer cells, to help it pass through the kidneys) and Prednisone (the steroid), it was decided that we would add some Zofran to help with nausea. Alex fell asleep in my arms while we were deciding how to get Alex to take his medicines, including some Zantac for his stomach. I’m now looking at some chocolate pudding that we are going to try and mask the flavor of the medicine in – I hope it works, and doesn’t ruin chocolate pudding for him for the long, long rest of his life!

I’ll let you know how it goes tomorrow.
Sara, Eric, Alexander & Tessa-Lynn