Well, that was quite the long day, wasn’t it? I think we managed to arrive at the Johns Hopkins at about 7:30 this morning for your morning radiation treatment and didn’t manage to get home after your pediatric oncology hospital clinic appointment until about 4 this afternoon. In between, though, we did skip out of the hospital and I gave you and Mom the grand tour of Baltimore to pass the time. (I think we managed to pass through the majority of notable places, hot ZIP codes and wastelands alike.)
You haven’t been taking too kindly to these morning radiation appointments and the accompanying restriction on not eating after midnight the night before. The radiation oncology team needs you under anesthesia so you don’t wiggle around or change positions while receiving the radiation. Trust me, it is better this way. That doesn’t mitigate the perverse irony, though, in that the intentional damage to the area where your giant tumor was is triggering your body’s healing response, which in turn requires a great deal of energy (and thus, a great deal of eating to fuel the healing). Your treatment is, in short, making you very hungry and we need to deny you some of your feedings in order to ensure your treatments are as effective as billed.
Mom and I are expecting to see some of the more visible signs of your cancer treatment in the next couple of days. Apart from the radiation treatments this week (thank goodness they end in a few more days), your chemotherapy treatment is going to do a number on you. You tolerated the vincristine well as well as we could have hoped for in your previous 2 treatments, but today the vincristine was coupled with doxorubicin. They both have their own set of side effects, and coupled together, well, we’re hunkering down for a rough few days. We are pretty certain that your beautiful hair will start falling out in short order (don’t worry, it will grow back before you can even appreciate that you lost it in the first place) and you’ll be sporting these cute little baby hats with regularity afterwards.
At this point though, Mom and I are going to be even more concerned about your well being (is that even possible now?) since the one-two punch of chemo will leave you significantly at risk of infection and almost certainly stripped of your body’s natural capacity to fight it off. We’ve been advised that you blood cell and platelet counts will take a dive, and gradually start coming back up as your body recovers from the chemo. If the pediatric oncology team finds that your counts are too low, you may need a blood transfusion.
For the foreseeable future, however, we need to be prepared to whisk you back down to Hopkins to be evaluated and possibly re-admitted if you start running a fever of more than 100.3. Nine months ago, Mom and I were packing our “fly-away” bags so we could grab them and go when Mom went into labor with you. Now we need to do the same thing so we can grab them and go if we need to rush you back to Baltimore. I have a feeling our checklist of things to pack will be a little different now.
I spent the better part of this evening trying to enjoy and appreciate your company, your smiles and giggles, and your playfulness knowing that some rougher waters await. Silly, I know, because you have shown to all you encounter that you are a tough-as-nails fighter and that you determined to break-through what ails you in order to laugh, smile and play. Rest up, sweet pea; another session of radiation awaits. I pray you sleep well tonight.
Love,
Daddy
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