I can't believe it's mid-September already and we're back into the routine of school lunches and waking up early.
Eric had a check up at clinic yesterday. His platelet count has dropped a little but is not unexpected with his current treatment. Everything else, most importantly, those germ fighting white cells, are still looking decent. He's 9 days into a 28 day cycle of chemo and handling it well so far🤞After having his port flush, bloodwork and check up with his Oncologist at clinic, we headed to the Respirology clinic where he completed 2 breathing tests. In between tests, one of the clowns came to hang out in the waiting room.
We are still awaiting those results, but the tests were fast, so I expect he's done okay because they didn't have to ask him to repeat the tests multiple times. We are also waiting for chimerism results; the blood was drawn for that yesterday and it will take approximately 2 weeks for full results as it is a lab in Seattle that does the analysis. The chimerism test is to check if Eric's blood (and therefore bone marrow) is made of healthy donor DNA, which is what we are hoping for. In the meantime, we got the all clear to go on our train trip, and don't have to be back at the clinic for almost 2.5 weeks.
Even though Eric is still undergoing treatment, he is quite stable. As a result, we were able to enroll him in swimming lessons (at a private pool) and skating lessons which he hasn't been able to do for a couple of years and he is super happy!
Did I mention a train trip? Thanks to Starlight Children's Foundation, our family gets to go on the Rocky Mountaineer next week. We fly from here to Calgary and then the next morning, we take a bus to Banff with 14 other Starlight families. In Banff they have some surprises and activities for the families. The next morning (way too early) we get on the train through the Rockies to Kamloops. In Kamloops we stay overnight at a hotel and the next day get back on the train to finish the trip back to Vancouver. It is 15 Starlight families in one train car with dining on the bottom and glass dome seating above; we even have our own outdoor viewing platform. It's going to be so fun (and exhausting!)
My PSA for the month: September is childhood cancer awareness month! It is actually shocking how little funding and research goes toward pediatric cancers. Follow me on Instagram or Facebook to learn more this month.
If you want to support pediatric cancer research directly, please check out the Michael Cuccione Foundation Michael Cuccione Foundation
If you would like to support pediatric cancer families, please check out West Coast Kids Cancer Foundation WCK or Balding for Dollars Balding for Dollars
As always, donating blood is free and very necessary to support those in treatment Canadian Blood Services
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