Our good friend Molly spent the morning with us on one of our weekly visits to the cancer center and photographed the experience. She shares those photographs on her website in a post called elliot goes to the hospital.
Thanks Molly!
Friday, May 18, 2012
Beginning of Maintenance
The end of Delayed Intensification II was tough. Elliot’s was
severely neutropenic (ANC of zero) and his other blood counts were low as well.
He had to get a few transfusions of blood and platelets. Then on Thursday 4/4,
he spiked a fever and was admitted to the hospital. They did the routine
treatment—blood cultures, IV antibiotics, IV fluids. His fever was gone by the
next day, but his counts remained low so they wanted to keep him. He ended up
getting a unit of blood on Saturday 4/6, and they let him go home on Monday.
His counts remained low for several weeks, so we were
delayed in starting Maintenance. On 4/25 we began Maintenance with a lumbar
puncture with spinal chemo, IV chemo, and we started on a daily regime of oral
chemo. We have been told that maintenance will be better—and it is, but it’s
still no piece of cake. Elliot will still get a lumbar puncture each month and
5 days each month he will be on steroids.
In between the steroids and the lumbar puncture has been better
though. He will only get his port accessed monthly and his counts have been
staying up. We go in each week to check his counts, but the visits to the
cancer center have been quicker. His appetite has been poor for the past few
weeks, but other than that he seems to be feeling fine. Next Wednesday we go
back in for another lumbar puncture and repeat the process again.
We are thankful that we have gotten to this stage of
treatment. It’s been nice having Elliot’s counts up, so we can take him places
and do things. Our entire family attended our small church group meeting last
week for the first time in a year.
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