Hard. It's raining hard.
Yesterday (Thursday) was a great day. The new teenager was up on his own and we had an uneventful trip in and back. Alex ate quite well, we were in a good mood all day and laughed a lot last night, just the two of us, (Samantha, the great, great trouper, was off at a school outdoor camp for two nights.)
A pretty typical Groundhog day today, Friday. The third day in a row we have been to the hospital and the seventh out of the last ten. Alex is tired. He really didn't want to get up and go this morning and as the chemo adds up, it's amazing how different things are in twelve hours. You're up one day ond an your ass the next. Bit of a struggle today but he fought through it.
It took a little longer this morning as we had to wait for blood work to come back to see how the transfusion from Wednesday was holding up and whether he would need more blood over the weekend. His haemoglobin was 95, not bad, so we're clear on the transfusion front at least through the weekend. At this point one's platelets typically start to drop, often severely. Alex has had very good platelet counts - as good as yours or mine even, and while the number was still in the normal range it had come down a fair bit from Wednesday and he will likely need platelets next week the doc said.
We got home mid morning and Alex went straight to bed and slept for a couple of hours. Woke up but with no energy for anything except to lie there, curled up. Done. (No barfing though!) Often in the past when it's been like this, Alex has been down for a good 24 or even 48 hours.
But. But, by four o'clock or so, this strong Duke scratched his way back and surprised me a bit by getting back up and even eating a little and drinking a lot. Well done, Alex!
We have one more day of Ara-C tomorrow (Alex has had 15 of 16 treatments of this drug. Plus others of course) and then a couple of days off. We would have been off until Wednesday (that's our day!) but we will go in Tuesday for blood work to check those platelets and haemoglobin. Alex will get a different type of chemo on Wednesday, blood counts permitting, and then I think he gets a good stretch off. Like maybe a whole week. Yee haw. Yawn.
We're nearing the end of this "consolidation" phase and then we move to "interim maintenance." Here's hoping that's a little easier ... but we ain't banking on it.
