After visiting the hospital through Saturday, Eric and I only had one day, Sunday, free! He did have swimming lessons on that day, but unfortunately, he got a bleeding nose Sunday morning that we had difficulty stopping so he wasn't able to attend. Luckily, his nose did eventually stop bleeding, before I was worried enough to go to the hospital.
On Monday morning, we headed back into the hospital. Traffic was fine, but the hospital parking lot was bonkers. Luckily we've made friends with the Valet guys, so even though they were full too, they were willing to accommodate us. Conversely, the T8 clinic was practically empty. Eric's nurse had to access his port again after he was just de-accessed on Saturday. His port site is a little bruised and quite sensitive so it was a bit of a rough one for Eric. The platelets were ready pretty quickly so we were in and out in decent time.
Grandma is here this week with her little puppy, Lily, so Eric spent Tuesday and Wednesday going to school during the day and playing with the puppy the rest of the time.
Unfortunately, Eric did wake up with a headache on Thursday morning and wasn't able to go to school. His head was hurting all day, which is often a sign of low hemoglobin in Eric so I let his Nurse Clinician know for his appointment the next day.
Friday was a Pro-D day, but not a day off for Eric because we had a clinic appointment. The clinic was packed and we waited about 20 min for a room, but when we got to the room, it actually hadn't been cleaned yet, so we waited another 10 min for that. On the plus side, his nurse was right there with us waiting for the room to be cleaned so she was able to get him accessed right away. His port site was still tender so it did hurt more than usual, again. Even though the platelets had been pre-ordered, we waited and waited since the blood bank in the hospital didn't have them ready for pick up. We got the results of Eric's bloodwork while we were waiting. His white blood cells are way down adn his neutrophils (germ fighting white blood cells) are non-existent, whish is expected for one week out from the IV chemo. Surprisingly, his hemoglobin count wasn't critical, and he didn't have a headache Friday, so maybe that makes sense. Though, we figured by the time he had his next appointment Wednesday of next week, it would be critical and we didn't want him to suffer waiting for that appointment, so we elected to have the blood transfusion as well. Luckily, the Child Life Specialist was also waiting for us to arrive. She had received a new LEGO shipment was excited to give Eric a Mini Figure Vending Machine set. It is maybe the coolest LEGO set I've seen and kept Eric busy for our very long clinic day. Traffic was not awesome and we didn't make it home until 5:30.
This week we did also receive the chimerism (DNA) results of the biopsy. Somehow 2 samples were sent and one had 15% donor DNA and one had 19% donor DNA, lending credence to Eric's Oncologist's frequent comment of small changes between biopsies (ex. 10% and 12%) not being statistically significant. This is an increase over his last biopsy, which was about 10% donor DNA. I'm always happy about an increase in donor DNA; however, combined with the increased leukemia blasts, I think his Oncologist would probably say these results are relatively similar (stable) to the last ones. I can only say probably though because we didn't see his Oncologist this week. He was the attending on the inpatient ward for the week so he was very busy with that. We saw a fellow and Eric's Nurse Clinician this week and we will see his regular Oncologist next week. The Nurse Clinician did pass on that his Oncologist is still fighting Health Canada about the clinical trial. We're back to the clinic on Wednesday next week. Fingers crossed Eric can make his swimming lesson tomorrow after missing the last two weeks!
Chuck, Joel and I all got our flu and covid vaccines this week. Eric can't get vaccinated so it's very important that we do to protect him. Please take 15 minutes and get your vaccinations to protect Eric and others like him!
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