Luke here...Not too much to report. As Susan noted in the last entry Nathan's counts were up very well on Thursday so he didn't need transfusions on Friday like we expected. He has been feeling pretty good so we have been doing a lot of playing and trying to get out some to shake the cabin fever that builds up while his counts are down. We have been having a good family weekend.
Next week looks to be a very busy one. Monday we will be going in very early in the morning to the hospital's outpatient facility. Nathan has a CT scan with sedation in the morning. This is to take a look at the tumor in his abdomen to check in and see how it is reacting to treatment (hopefully shrinking!). After the CT scan he has a hearing exam. His next course of treatments will likely damage his hearing and they need to do a test now to baseline things. Apparently the drugs often do permanent damage to high frequency hearing. After the scan and test it will be off to the clinic for his counts and an exam. If his platelets are up enough (we already know his immune system is up enough) then cycle 3 of treatments will start on Tuesday. If they aren't up, then the cycle won't start until the following Monday. This is a 4 day treatment cycle. So, if his counts are up, he will be getting full day treatments Tuesday through Friday of next week. This set of drugs are new to him and all accounts we get from other parents who have done this protocol are that these are extremely nasty (one parent refers to cycles 3 and 5 as vomit fest). We shall see. Everyone reacts differently. Tuesday he will have another BMA (bone marrow aspiration). His counts shot back up so well that the doctors are hopeful his marrow is pretty clear. The same thing happened last time and they got our hopes up and there was only minimal improvement. We are hopeful, but not getting our hopes too high.
That is the plan for the week. We'll probably update on Monday after scans and counts. Tomorrow will be an uneventful weekend day.
Hope you are all enjoying your weekend.
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