Recovery Time & Old Movies

Even if Liam wasn't interested in Thanksgiving turkey, it was very nice to all be home at one time. We spent a whole day at home on Monday! Today Liam had an appointment at the clinic to get his blood counts done.

We are scheduled to do the final round of 3 high dose chemo with stem cell rescue starting Thursday October 19. Fingers crossed that we can sleep at home until then. I can't say we won't be visiting the hospital, as Liam will have checkups, a kidney function test and a hearing check, he gets both of those tests with each chemotherapy cycle. Liam won't get another MRI before the next cycle, I'm not sure exactly of the next one, likely shortly after the last chemo cycle.

Monday, Liam laid on the couch much of the day, he's really tired now. This is really the first time he's been this tired out. Today he spent a few hours here and there playing, but again was very tired. It's tough to see him like this, but he's just been such a trooper for so long, it was bound to happen with the high dose chemo. I pulled out some old VHS movies from the basement for him, Liam really liked both Bambi and The Little Mermaid.

Liam is also still having vomiting and diarrhea, the diarrhea has been non stop for 3 weeks, poor kid, but he gets it every time he gets antibiotics and he's been on antibiotics for 3 weeks. The vomiting is about once a day, despite all the Dexamethasone, Ondansetron (zofran) and Gravol he gets regularly.

For those interested, here are Liam's counts. The g-csf really did it's job! Liam's counts came up faster this cycle than last. Technically, Liam's counts are high enough to start the next cycle (he needs to have platelets > 75 and ANC > 750 to start), but I think they know we all need a bit of recovery time.

	Liam Oct 7	Liam Oct 9	Normal Range	When take action
White Blood Cells	1.6	41	4.0-14.0	n/a
Hemoglobin	123	125	110-157	<80
Platelets	23	118	150-400	<10-20
ANC	500	32800