Thanksgiving Day and I just realized that I hadn't done a blog post for last week. Eric is still not feeling great and having more bad days than good days. He wasn't able to make it to school at all last week, but he did make it to the field trip at the swimming pool.
I had to drive out to the pharmacy on Monday to pick up a refill of Eric's oral chemo. The one he's been on since restarting after the initial treatment for the fungal infection, the one that is not as hard on his immune system, is a liquid. It is in this huge bottle and his dose is 10mls and it's really hard to tell how many doses are left at any given time. At least I was able to go mid day when traffic isn't much of an issue and Eric was able to stay home. However, Eric was having a super duper bad headache and the pain meds weren't helping much. This lasted all day on Monday, and Tuesday as well.
On Wednesday Eric had his clinic visit. I had let his Nurse Clinician know in advance about the headaches, and assuming that it was a result of low hemoglobin, she added a group and screen to his bloodwork. His platelets came nice and fast so we got those started and his Oncologist came by to let us know that Eric's hemoglobin was 79 so he ordered a blood transfusion as well. Eric was feeling okay and discovered there were lots of Pokémon at the hospital in Pokémon Go, so we went down to the lobby to catch them.
We stayed downstairs about 20 minutes and then Eric was tired and wanted to go back to his room. It was good timing since the platelet transfusion finished right after we arrived. They got flushed and the blood arrived almost right away, which is so much better than having to wait for it since a blood transfusion takes so long. Eric's Oncologist came in for a longer chat with me. Eric's blast count was up a bit, but actually not too bad yet. It has been climbing - 1.4, 2, 2.4 - but not exploding. We discussed restarting another chemo, either IV or oral, but in the end we decided to wait and make a decision at his next appointment on Tuesday. He was feeling decent on Wednesday, except for the headaches, and we assumed that would go away with the blood transfusion. He hadn't been at school in almost 3 weeks, so I wanted him to be able to go to school Thursday and go on his field trip Friday and have a nice long weekend.
He was planning to go to school on Thursday, but he slept quite late and I didn't want to wake him. He could have gone to school partway through the day, which he's done often in the past, but being in a new class, in a new school, he wasn't comfortable doing that. So he stayed home for the day and I agreed to wake him up at 7:30 on Friday so he could go to school on time.
I woke him up Friday as planned, but he asked if he really had to go to school before the field trip. Of course I said he didn't have to go to school if he didn't want to so we made arrangements to meet his class at the pool. He had fun swimming, but was happy to see me for pick up because he wanted to go in the hot tub. However, the kids aren't allowed in the hot tub on a field trip, since they have to be supervised by someone over the age of 16. I stood and watched him for a few minutes in the hot tub so he could warm up.
Friday might have been the peak of the week for Eric. On Saturday he wasn't feeling great again, and his ankles were hurting as well and he didn't really want to stand to put up the Halloween decorations, so he had a pretty chill day. Sunday he woke up again feeling poorly and was sad because we were having family over for Thanksgiving dinner. He did rally in the afternoon before dinner and had a good time with family, even getting to play one of his favourite games, Telestrations.
Halloween decorations will go up on Monday; clinic Tuesday and Friday this week, due to the holiday on Monday.
No comments:
Post a Comment