Chemo Protocol Day 12 - doing quite well. The vincristine from yesterday dropped his white count to 0.9, and the differential, or "diff" ( the breakdown of cell types expressed as a percentage) shows neutrophils (the ones that fight acute infections), "segs" (segmented neutrophils are mature neutrophils), and lymphocytes. It didn't mention "blasts" or immature forms associated with leukemia. That's a good thing!!
The chemo also dropped his hemoglobin (measure of RBCs) to 7.1. So he got another unit of RBCs. Platelets are holding firm at 20,000.
Ryan walked to Panera and got himself some lunch today. Alarmed me since he was a bit wobbly on his feet. But he's really hungry. He's been talking about fried chicken for a week now, and he asked for Popeyes chicken for supper. So we bought a bucket and we all ate together in the visitor's lounge on his ward. Not exactly the healthiest food in the world, but at this point we just want to pack him full of calories and maintain his scrawny weight. Sophia said he was much steadier on his feet tonight.
After we left to take MeiLin to BB practice, he took Sophia and Wanda with him to the cafeteria and ate another meal!! No nausea so far.
The walls are closing in, though. And the only windows on his floor look out onto construction. He still has a positive attitude about his cancer, but we've noticed the slightest little bit of grouchiness. All of you who know what a control freak I am know I'd be going absolutely nuts in a situation like this - he has no control whatsoever over anything in his life right now and is sick of feeling helpless and dependent. He's earned the right to be a little grouchy (just not at any of us......)!
LaBella pizza with jalapenos for lunch tomorrow.........
MeiLin's band concert is tomorrow night. We're going to try to fit in TaeKwonDo as well. there is testing every 3 months, and you need 20 classes to test. We're a little behind so we need to squeeze in classes whenever we can. There are five classes a week we can go to, but conflicts with basketball practice, dance, activity days and now Ryan's illness have us trying to catch up.
Spoke very briefly to Dr. Rauch. He's pleased with Ryan's progress. Said the protocol calls for another intrathecal (into the cerebrospinal fluid via spinal tap) chemo injection on Day 18 - next Sunday. He prefers to do the procedure under fluoroscopy (real time X-ray) because of its accuracy and a higher certainty of getting it on the first attempt with Ryan's low platelets. Because of the Memorial Day holiday, it will probably get done Day 20 instead.
Fatigue is setting in for me. Although I'm sleeping fairly well, I'm emotionally and intellectually shot. So I played a lot of Free Cell today and vegged out for the most part. Tomorrow I'll try to focus on all the things that I need to do around the house. But today I struggled to make simple decisions.
Wanda injured her back lifting her invalid mother before she came out, and it's been hurting her terribly. So we're giving her some meds and Sophia gave her a good massage. Trying to break the spasm and get her feeling better before she has to fly all day to El Paso then drive 4 hours home on Wednesday.
Hanging in there..........
---Barb
Ryan's positive attitude during all of this is amazing, as is yours. Thanks for the updates.
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