Tired

Both Alex I are exhausted... I promise to update everyone about today in the morning... Good night.

Day Minus 7

Today, Alex's body was flooded with radiation - twice. It will happen again for the next three days.

The medical transport came to get him at 7:20am. Since we weren't sure how well he was going to do while conscious, the sedation team was standing by. This, of course, meant no food before the treatment.

Alex rode in a bed, and I walked beside him, as we traversed the barely navigable back halls of OHSU to get to the radiation center. We started on the 10th floor, then went to the 8th floor, then back up to the 10th floor, and then to the 4th floor.

Eric met us there after leaving Tessa in good hands with Grandma Diana back at the house. Two nice ladies (whose names I have forgotten), walked us into the room with the Linear Accelerator on one side, and a reclining chair on the other.



Alex sat so very still while the techs worked to get him lined up with the machine. His feet were bound, his body taped with radiation gauges embedded in brass. Pillows, towels, and sheets were folded, and wedged under different parts of his body so the machine would accurately wash his body with the same amount of radiation everywhere.



After he was strapped to the chair, and had his hands tapped down, a giant plexiglass screen was put between him and the machine.

I tried not to cry when it was time for us to leave. I was holding my own until the door closed. This door...wow...this door was 24 inches of lead and concrete - a two foot thick vault door. It slid closed silently, masking any sound of Alex, or the movie he was watching (Empire Strikes Back).

We were allowed a quick view of Alex on the video monitor, sitting as stoically as the picture above, then we were banished from the room, due to HIPPA laws (other patient info might be visible). After about 10 minutes, his first "side" was done, and we were allowed back into the chamber, and got to touch him and talk to him, while they arranged him for the second radiation blast.

The door quietly removed us from our son, and the radiation began again. All Eric and I could do is sit on the small brown bench next to that damn door, and listen to the faint sounds of Star Wars through the unseen monitor.

Alex was amazing...he IS amazing. He is my hero. He didn't feel the effects of the radiation right away, but as the day progressed, he started to complain of a headache. After his second round of TBI (Total Body Irradiation) this afternoon, the headache got bad enough that he asked for pain medicine. A dose of Oxycodon did the trick, and he napped for a few hours.

I napped right with him in his hospital bed, and felt the warmth of his face on my arm. When he woke up, we could see that his face is flushed (one of the side effects of TBI, along with headaches).

With a note from Alex's Chemo Pal that he was on his way, I kissed my boy goodnight, and headed for home to see my sweet girl, who misses her "brooder" so much.

Day Minus 8

We are here in the hospital, all checked in. We are a go for radiation at 8am tomorrow.

Since Alex tested positive for the Rhino cold virus, he had to endure another nose swab. Alex was kicking and screaming, and we needed another nurse to help hold him down, while the other nuse did the swab.

When she finished, Alex and I held each other and slowly stopped our tears.

More info tomorrow.

Alex and Tessa's Doctor's office

Alex knows way too much about the doctors office. If you ever wanted to be a fly on the wall at one of his clinic visits, this is what you would see.

Tessa is a very good patient, and Alex is a dead-ringer for the nurses.

Go To Hell

I have said it before, and I will say it again.

Go To Hell, cancer, GO TO HELL!

So, you decided to show your ugly face here again. You decided that 2 years of *hell* for our little boy just wasn't enough. You decided that you would use the cure from your first attack, to cause your second invasion. You decided that the poisons running through our son's veins, and bathing his brain weren't damaging enough.

You came back.

You picked the wrong kid.

Our resolve is strong, and our anger is real. How dare you come back, after we beat you into oblivion. How dare you show yourself by invading our son's bone marrow. How dare you steal this school year from him. How dare you threaten to kill him. How dare you show up on bone marrow smears under a microscope, mocking everyone who tries to obliterate you.

I have read up on you. I know so many of your secrets. I read your biography. I am asking others to read it too. Young children used to scream in agony as their bones shattered from the pressure of all the leukemic cells in their marrow. Can you hear them, back through time? Can you hear the parents weeping for their children?

Hear this now.

We have a perfect match volunteer donor somewhere on the other side of our planet. She is waiting for the call from our doctors to go have her hips punctured to harvest her marrow. That marrow will be shipped via special courier to our side of the planet, processed, and placed into Alex's body within 24 hours of the extraction.

We will prepare Alex's body for this life-saving transplant by irradiating his body twice a day, for four days straight. THEN, we will poison him to the brink of death with a Chemo that is a derivative of MUSTARD GAS. Yes cancer, we will poison our son, with both toxic chemicals, and with high-dose radiation, in order to wipe you out.

Alex is strong. He is aware of what you are doing to him. He is wise well beyond his years. He flushes his new Hickman Line just as well as the nurses. He is going into this with his eyes open.

He is only six years old. Damn you, cancer. Alex's body is riddled with scars we can see, and with scars we cannot. His body has had more procedures than most people have in their whole lifetime.

On the first day of school, while his friends walk into their new classroom, he will be walking into a lead box for radiation.

I know life isn't fair. I know life isn't supposed to be a bed of roses.

I also know that this "nuclear option", this bone marrow transplant will work.

Your days are numbered.

Start counting.

We are.