Monday Sept. 9th: Chemo week 22!! What goes up, must come down

Riley has been feeling and looking so good! We went to Grandma Dalley's 88th birthday party on Saturday and Riley was playing like crazy with the cousins! He ran and ran for hours! I knew his counts were up and he felt good!! Come Saturday late afternoon he was WORE OUT!! Which was to be expected! Then he started to get the sniffles......

On Sunday he was VERY congested and tired still, so we just relaxed all day. Then about 10:30p.m.  he wouldn't go to sleep and I noticed he was getting hot. So I took his temp and he had a fever. I thought, no way, he has been doing so amazing, he can't get sick that fast..... YEP he did. We ended up at PCMH for the night with a good dose of fluids and Rosephin (antibiotic).
Daddy of course wouldn't miss work, so he left the hospital at 4:00a.m. to sleep for 2 hours then go to work, while I stayed with Riley in a teeny tiny kids bed!! The railing was the only thing keeping me from hitting the ground!! Needless to say we got about 3 hours of sleep....maybe!!! 
He got a cold virus that his body is trying to fight.

I don't want to be here.... But I got a new gorilla from the nice nurse! I named him Kong!!

Monday morning at 8:00a.m. we had scans. A chest x-ray and an abdomen ultrasound, both of which came back good!!!
Then off to Chemo. They were worried about how sick he was, then to give him a hard chemo on top of it, but his blood work came back so good that they went ahead with it.
We got a Doxorubison and 3/4 dose of Vincristine.

Here are his counts:

WEEK:      1    2    3     4     5     6    7    8   9   10   11   12   13  16 19 22

HGB:   14.1    12.9         ??      11.7      10.7    9.5   9.8   10.3   9.2   9.2   8.8   10.8   11.5    11.9   12.3   12.2                (less then 8 is bad)   
 
Hct:    41.8%    37.8%   35%  33.2    30.2   27.4    28.6   29.7   26.5   27.1   25.1   31.4   33.5   34.2   34.9     34.3               (less then 24% is bad)     
 
WBC:  10.5      4.7         3.6      4.2     2.3       1.9   6.3    3.7   3.9   2.8   1.9   2.6   2.85   3.3   2.8     8.6                        (5.5 is a low normal)

PLTS:   621      288        272    347   280      288   466   168    265   475  319  318  400  378    329     333                    (less then 30 is bad)    
 
ANC:   7.6       3.0          2.2     1.5    1.5          .6     2.4    2.3   2.2   .8  1.0   .6   .8    1.2      1.0     5.4                  (less the 1 is bad, less then .5 is really bad)


I am sooooo amazed at his ANC  and White blood count!!! They are fabulous!!
Even being that high, I am surprised at how sick he got. I can't even imagine what it would be like having no immune system.

As we were leaving chemo, (they released us to go home) about 12:30p.m. I had them check his temp again because he was getting warm and he was running a fever again. So they gave him a dose of Tylenol and told us to watch him and call with updates.

MONDAY UPDATES:
4 projectile vomits
Fever all day that finally broke at 9:30p.m.
One sick boy that keeps saying "mommy, I don't want to throw up anymore".
One scared and tired mommy!!!

They said that there is nothing they can do for his fever because it is a virus and the Rocephin they gave him lasts 24 hours, so even if we went to the hospital, they couldn't do anything for him until about 4:00 in the morning.
But I was to NOT give him Tylenol at every 6 hours but to wait about 8 hours in between because they needed him to fever to see how high it would get, they give him Tylenol to get it back down.
We don't want to mask the fever but we don't want him to suffer to much either.
 

Just watching a movie with dad!!

EVERYTHING I ever thought of with sickness is now all turned around with CANCER........
In my mind, I would rather get sick with a bacterial infection and be able to get on antibiotics and feel better sooner, rather then get a viral infection and suffer with no help.
But with CANCER, we want it to be a viral infection and still get some antibiotics rather then a bacterial infection which is in the blood stream, that Riley can't fight off very well, with antibiotics. Bacterial infection can go into the lungs and cause pneumonia and other bad infections too.

So to say the least we are TIRED!!! 

PRECIOUS!!!

Riley slept all night last night, of course in our bed.... we had to watch him!!
Today, he is doing pretty good. He has not thrown up, but he hasn't eaten either. He has drank a little bit, but everything he tries, doesn't taste good.
We'll just keep trying!

Hunter is struggling with all of this. He is doing EVERYTHING possible to get our attention. Poor kid. I feel so bad for him and we are trying to give him what he needs, but after the last 36 hours, I have nothing left to give. He is such a good boy and loves Riley so much. He worries about him more then a 7 year old should. I love you buddy, this will all be over one day, I promise. 

All I can say is how thankful I am for good family and friends that keep checking up on us...... for my mom who has been here with Hunter, there with us, and everywhere in between, and for DINNER that was brought in last night. We are sooooo blessed!! THANK YOU!

1 MORE LEFT!!!! 1 MORE TREATMENT LEFT!!!!!