Welcome to Nathan's Cancer Journey

This blog is a reposting of Nathan's Caringbridge page which we updated throughout his battle with Neuroblastoma.

Nathan was born on June 16, 2000, diagnosed with Stage IV Neuroblastoma on April 1, 2003 and died on July 29, 2007.

I have posted the journal here to make it easier to look up by date and also to be able to easily add pictures to the journal entries.

Some of the pictures go along with the text, but many of the pictures you will see were pictures taken on the same date the journal was added, even if the pictures have nothing to do with the text. In the future I may add additional journal entries to go along with pictures to add more explanation/memories.

I am just getting started posting the years of entries and so this will be incomplete for some time. I hope to eventually also post the guestbook entries by date as a comment on the post.

Thursday, July 7, 2005

Thursday, July 7, 2005 8:44 PM CDT

Well - the ugly stuff has started.

After running around out and about this morning Nathan had his appointment and his counts are already low. Everyone was surprised. The doctor said his bone marrow definately remembers the chemo. This is not really great because it means that Nathan will not tolerate high doses of chemo very well. It will likely take him a while for his counts to come up. He is starting to get mucousitis (sores)and we are hoping it doesn't get so bad that he can't eat. It is also affecting his bottom. While we were at the clinic he got a very bad nosebleed. It was just gushing and it was way back in his nose where we couldn't stop it and where it was just pouring blood in his mouth. It lasted for a long time and the poor thing was just spitting blood and choking. They gave him some medicine to help his blood clot and some anti-nausea medicine as well. He will get platlets tomorrow even though he isn't quite at the level to get them - he will be by the end of the weekend and with the nosebleeds he just has to have them. He got another long (30 minute) nosebleed when we got home. The poor thing is just exhausted. It was really hard to see him in such bad shape. It is bringing it all back. Unfortunately he is just going to feel even worse for the next week or more. If he gets a fever he will be admitted. At this point I have to almost assume that will happen - I hope not though.

We got word that the preliminary date for his surgery is August 1. He will have a scan here on the 24th and it will be sent to NY. I am sure that date will change - but at least we have a general time frame. I was kind of hoping it would be a little sooner. Nathan is due to start Kindergarten on August 15 and I was really hoping he would make the first day. He still could - but it is just not as certain now.

The port access went really well. He was upset about it before it happened - but when it finally did he didn't even flinch. I don't think he felt a thing. So - that is a big relief! They left him accessed since he will get platelets tomorrow. The platelets don't take very long to infuse so he should only have to be there for an hour to an hour and a half.

I have a feeling there was more I was going to write but I can't really think anymore. I am just really hoping he can avoid a nosebleed tonight.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)