Our Brave Boy

On Friday, we had a doctor's appointment, including a blood count, Vincristine, and those dreaded PEG Asparaganaise shots in his thighs.

Imagine this... two nurses come in, hiding the needles behind their back. They pull down Alex's pants to get to his thighs. Then, they each poke him in a thigh with a 1 1/2 inch needle. The normal reaction to these shots in the clinic is screaming. While the numbing cream reduces the pain, it doesn't reduce the image or the feeling of the needle in the muscle.

The nurses braced themselves for a crying, screaming kid. I braced myself to comfort him while he sat on my lap during the shot. None of us expected the reaction we got.

Alex took my hand, and gently squeezed when the needles went in. Then, nothing but a big deep breath. Not even teary eyes. He was so brave, I almost cried!

Alex also was also non-chalant about getting his PORT accessed. While we waited for the blood tests to come back, doctor Stork came in to check on us. She said she expected his counts to be quite low.

Sure enough, his ANC was down to 500, and his RBC (red blood count) was down to 6.8 (normal is over 10), and his Platelets were down to 15 (normal is over 350). So, our short doctors appointment turned into an all day event. The nurses ordered the blood, and platelets, and gave him his Vincristine.

We spent the rest of the day with Alex hooked up to an IV getting his transfusions, napping, and watching Disney Channel. We finally got home at around 7pm that night.

His color and energy are so much better since the transfusion! We have another appointment tomorrow to check on his counts to see if he needs another transfusion, or if he is holding his own. I don't think he'll need anymore this week. Although, he is growing taller, but not gaining any weight. He's down to 37 lbs - I'm going to bring it up to the doctor to see if we need to supplement his diet with some shakes (*not* chocolate) in order to "put some meat on his bones"...

I'll let you all know how it goes!