Day 2 of chemo

Day 2 of chemo done. Today was about 3 hours of chemo, again no side effects have shown up, yet. Liam is just very tired, he got up at 6:00am, then went back to sleep until late morning, and was asleep early tonight. We attended a music therapy session, Liam enjoyed that.

First day of Chemo

Pretty uneventful day. Liam had his first day of chemo, it was just a day of sitting around. So far Liam feels fine, fighting bedtime as he always does! Today was day 1 of 3 of chemo for this month. We are admitted to the Children's Hospital for 3 or 4 days depending on how Liam does.

Tough News

It's been a tough couple of days. They found abnormal cells in Liam's spinal fluid, which makes him high risk instead of average risk, like they originally thought (hoped). They couldn't do this check until 3 weeks after the surgery. As a result, the plans have changed and we start chemo tomorrow. Liam will have 3 months of conventional chemo plus chemo in his spinal fluid, then 3 months of high dose chemo. (6 months total). We did the swallow test, and Liam was able to swallow food and liquid pretty well. He is able to eat now, although will keep the feeding tube through chemo. But now that he's used the feeding tube, he doesn't want to eat! Go figure. Though it is hard to celebrate this given the other news.

Stem cell harvest

Apheresis today, Liam will be hooked up to this crazy machine for a few hours (or more). They are collecting stem cells to use later with chemo.

Next steps

The oncologist is starting the plan for radiation and chemo starting end of May. This is a world I just have no idea about, it's overwhelming.

Unable to swallow food

It's easy for me to post updates when things are well, difficult when things aren't as good - the swallow test revealed that Liam is unable to swallow, we watched on a video X-ray. They are going to just leave him on the feeding tube for a month to heal and try again and hope it resolves.

So smart

Liam is starting to know which people are doctors and nurses. 2 neurosurgeons were in checking on him and he pretended he was asleep. He closes his eyes, peeks, then closes them again. But the funny part is he keeps playing with his bears. Then when it is just the nurse left in the room, he opens his eyes again. So very smart of him!