Hello Everyone,
We had a great and busy weekend. Our neighbors invited us over on Friday night for a cook out and swimming to cool off. The boys were great and Colby has now started swimming on his own, w/o swimmies. Thomas kept us on our toes. He likes to stay close to the water. Nick is enjoying swimming a lot more this year than last. When I think about last summer, Nick never wanted to swim in pools and always complained the water was too cold and made him 'hurt'. We never understood why and would tell him to just try and swim. He would love going to the beach, which we did lots of day trips and play in the water. He would takes walk on the beach with Greg and then complain on the way back that he could not walk because his legs hurt. We thought he was just tired from the walk and wanted to be carried. We know we can not blame ourselves for the 'unknown' at that time, but it does not leave our minds either... something was not right.
This weekend was great because Nick was swimming everday from Friday-Sunday and never complained about pain or how cold the water was. We went to see Auntie Michele and cousin Rachel down in Sandwich on Saturday. The boys have boogie boards and once across the rocky sand, they were good to go in the ocean. Nick was hesitant at first, but once he was out in the water and floating, he was so happy. Colby is a fish and stayed in the water most of the day. The weather was beautiful and we enjoyed a cookout before heading home. On Sunday, I took Colby & Nick to St. Rocco's fair and met up with Michael and family. Nick wanted to ride every ride but unfortunately he was too short for a couple of them. He cried and was truly upset that he could not ride with Michael. Hopefully next year he will be tall enough. We headed back to the Diddario pool for lunch and cooling off. The boys had a great time and were tired by the time we got home.
Clinic was uneventful. We had a follow up appt. with Dr. O'Connor, our radiation doctor. She had no concerns and we do not have to go back until the end of his treatment. His counts have dropped some, which makes me feel a little better. People have asked why do you want his counts to be on the lower side and I thought of this example. (Hopefully you can follow me on this one, it definitely came out of no where). Imagine a huge bees nest and you are trying to get rid of the sick bees and keep the healthy ones in the nest. You only have one bottle of 'Raid' to use. If there are too many bees in the nest and you run out of raid, what happens? The sick bees could multiple faster and prevent the healthy bees from doing their job. We can only give Nick so much chemo, before you max out and the lower the counts, the easier for the chemo to attack the weak/leukemia cells. Now, they will also get rid of some of the healthy ones as well, but the weaker cells usually do not survive. I hope I made some sense. Of course, too low, means he could be neutropenic, which we do not want. The doctor's look for the happy/medium point on his counts.
Next week, Nick will have another spinal. He will receive Methotrexate through the spine and the doctor will take a sample to make sure they do not see blasts in the central nervous system. He will be asleep for this and I think the most difficult part is not being able to eat before. Nick is usually hungry and grouchy by the end. He does not like to be put to asleep, it does scare him but Greg or I will be in the room when he falls asleep. He will also have his 'Thomas the Train' pillow. This pillow has been with Nick since day 2 of his treatment and he feels 'safe' with it. I have attached a picture of Nick and his pillow. Take care and pray his spinal will go okay. Karen
