Day 42 of 57 during Consolidation Phase

We are so thankful that God has protected Elliot over the past few weeks. We have all had colds in our family except for Elliot! He has been feeling well. His is walking all over the place now, but he still falls a good bit from being unsteady. He gets frustrated with it sometimes and just wants to be carried, but it is nice to see him walking again.

Another answer to prayer is that on 6/20 his platelets were over 200,000 (up from 60,000 four days earlier). This, and his good AGC, allowed us to continue on track and be admitted for a particular type of chemo on 6/23 (Cyclophosphamide or CPM). It was a one night hospital stay and we were able to leave the next morning. Except for this planned hospitalization we haven’t been in the hospital since the few days on 5/28. This is remarkable considering the low counts he has been running for the past few weeks.

Last week we had what we thought was going to be a quick visit to the doctor’s office, but his hemoglobin came back low (7.4) and he needed a blood transfusion. It took longer waiting on the blood to be ready than to transfuse it. We got to the office at 9 am and didn’t get out until 3 pm.

During this phase we had to start giving Elliot shots at home of a particular type of chemo (ARA-C). We (Dave) gave them 4 days then had 4 days off. Then gave them for 4 days and had 2 weeks off. We just completed another 12 day cycle of that on Sunday. He quickly learned what was coming when Dave got the syringe out and would start crying, but it got better towards the end because we started using numbing cream on his abdomen before the shot. Either way, we are glad we are done with that for a while.

Elliot’s birthday is not until July 22, but since Dave’s parents were in town visiting over the weekend we had a little celebration for him. The picture is when we were trying to get him to blow out the candles on the cake Mom-mom made for him.

Tomorrow we have another doctors visit where Elliot is scheduled to get two types of chemo (PEG and VCR). With the PEG they worry about him getting a reaction. He’s had it a couple of times already and done fine, so we pray that continues.