Packing!

Liam doesn't quite fit in the suitcase, but he seems to be quite comfortable.

Chemo Day 3

Liam even had some fun today, Wednesday is Bingo day of course! Unfortunately though, vomiting has started. He's getting extra medicine now, hopefully we can manage the nausea.

Imagine how hard it is to explain to Liam why he is puking. We explained the doctor had to remove the tumour to stop the puking. And then to explain the medicine making him better is making him puke. When we're trying to get him to eat "by mouth", he says he doesn't want to eat because he will be sick, and we try to tell him the eating won't make him puke. It all sounds ridiculous when trying to explain it. Poor kid.

Happy 4th Birthday!

 

The child life specialists and nurses know how to brighten a child's day in the hospital. 

I woke up before Liam and put up his Thomas the train birthday decorations that we had at home up in his room. They  decorated Liam's door and all the nurses signed a birthday message for him. Everyone stopped in to wish him a happy birthday.

Then they opened up the play room in the morning for Liam, Grandma and Grandpa brought sister for a visitor, so they had a great play. Everyone got together and sang Liam happy birthday, and even brought him presents! He received a remote control car and stickers from Cars 2, a hit with Liam, of course.

Since it's Stampede time, two chuckwagon drivers also came to visit the kids at the hospital! Luke Tournier and Gary Gorst even joined in to sing happy birthday to Liam. 

Everyone made it a very special day for Liam.

Playroom Fun

 

After Liam woke from his nap in the clinic, I carried him to our room kicking and screaming. He is getting to know the routine, and he really didn't want to stay at the hospital. He doesn't mind going to appointments then going home.

Lucky, the playroom was open and Liam doesn't have any cough, runny nose, so he could go for a bit of a play. He enjoyed setting up some train tracks, this helped Liam calm down and be in a better mood for the rest of the day.

Chemo Cycle #3

"Help doctor, I have cars in my eyes!"

We have a lot of self entertainment sitting in exam rooms.

We saw the doctor this morning (actually, we saw the head oncologist, a fellow AND a resident today). We got Liam's blood counts, his platelets were questionable last week to start chemo, but they were way above the minimum number this morning, without having to have a transfusion for platelets this cycle.

Around noon Liam got his anesthetic, then his "routine" lumbar puncture and chemo injection into his CSF. That only takes a few minutes, he's having a nap now (1:15pm). After a small amount of anesthetic Liam tends to have a nap. The anesthesiologist makes sure she can wake him, monitors his vitals, and lets him nap. He was exhausted this morning, likely after all his birthday celebrating yesterday.

Cycle #3 is the same as the first 2 cycles, he has chemo today, Tuesday and Wednesday, then IV fluids until Thursday afternoon. Assuming all is good, we will go home Thursday.

Cycle #3 is the last of the induction chemo. Unfortunately next is the high dose chemo, we don't know what is in store for that until we get there, but it will be much more tough than we are experiencing now. There are 3 cycles of high dose chemo, 28 days each (the current is 21 days).

MRI

Part of Liam's protocol is to do MRI's along the way to check to see if any sneaky cancer cells have decided to hide out and reproduce, even with the chemo.

Liam had his first MRI since starting treatment (he had an MRI before surgery and an MRI the day after surgery), it doesn't show the tumour coming back right now, so that is some reassuring news.

I'm not sure how much this means in the long term, we don't have any details on the MRI results yet. We just got the quick summary, we will review the details with the doctor next week.

MRIs. Just another part of our "new normal".

"Quiet" week

We managed to only be at the hospital 2 days this week. Although this meant being at appointments from 9:00-3:00 on Tuesday, it is nice to have whole days away from the hospital.

In between appointments today, we had 15 minutes to watch the mini Stampede parade held at the Children's Hospital today. The nurses were wonderful and got Liam's bloodwork done so we could catch the parade. Grandma and Grandpa brought Madison to watch too!

Liam is all prepped for starting chemo cycle 3 on Monday. We will be in the hospital for chemo Monday to Thursday next week.