Weekly Check Up Friday, January 10

Eric brought his favourite stuffy, Snowball, to his biopsy on Monday and, unfortunately, we forgot it at the hospital! I contacted our Nurse Clinician as soon as we realized but she wasn't able to find Snowball. Luckily Snowball has a twin, Snowflake, but we do have two for a reason and I was quite concerned about not being able to find Snowball. Then, on Thursday afternoon I got an email from our Nurse Clinician saying that Snowball had been found and she would put him to work answering her phone until Eric was back Friday to retrieve him. Eric and I were both quite relieved! 

After the biopsy Monday, Eric still had to go in for a check up on Friday because of his low platelet counts. As expected, his platelets were low so he had a platelet transfusion. Additionally, his hemoglobin had dropped low enough that it was time for a red blood cell transfusion as well. The double transfusions can make for a very long day at the hospital, but we were there relatively early, at 9:30am and made it out around 3:30pm. Luckily for Eric, Kristina from Child Life had a nice Lego Dreamzzz set to keep him occupied. Unluckily, there was an accident on the highway at our exit that I didn't hear about on the radio until we were already in the exit lanes, so it was a very, very long trip home; thankfully, Eric slept most of the way so he didn't find it too bad. 

I had hoped to have some of the biopsy results at the appointment on Friday, but none of the more detailed results were available. We do know there are still no blasts showing up in the marrow, which is good; however, they can still see the abnormal cells that mark Eric's disease, which is very very not good and not what we are hoping for. This analysis is really just a quick look under the microscope and does not quantify anything. We need the more details results for that. Once we have the more detailed results, Chuck and I will sit down with Eric's Oncologist to discuss how to move forward. This will likely be at the end of the week, though I may need some time to digest it. 

I was also hoping that Eric's platelets would have held a little better from Monday to Friday. I knew they wouldn't be high, but was hoping for a bit of a reprieve from the clinic. We've been attending twice weekly (plus the 2 day admission) for over a month now and I'm getting pretty burnt out. I did talk with Eric's doctor about holding off until Friday anyhow, knowing his platelets would be low and the risks associated with that. However, after thinking about it over the weekend, I am not sure I am actually prepared to take the risk, so will check in tomorrow about going in on Wednesday instead. 

It's been a pretty low key week on the home front. Eric did make it to school for full days every day he was available this week which was Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Other than that, lots of relaxing at home for all of us as we finally recover from the viruses that hit us over the holidays.