I was driving into work on Thursday morning when Alex called to say he was throwing up. That was a bit surprising as he had been so well of late. Normal - aside from missing some white blood cells and that doesn't make you feel bad. He hadn't had much appetite the night before mind you, but still ...
Probably just one of those things I thought, but ... better check it out. I was just hitting the Lions Gate bridge and had to cross over, fight traffic down Denman Street to find a place to turn around and then head back home. Alex was in his room and threw up again when I got there but we've seen worse.
About fifteen minutes later though he got a pain in his lower left abdomen. It got worse. And worse. Alex, the black lab, I call him sometimes, has a very high pain thresh hold. He can take a lot, big needles in the spine and quads and things, so when he is writhing around, you know it's mega-pain. Okay, Dr. Paul, what else? No temperature, no obvious other symptoms ... I'd like to phone a friend please.
I called the oncology day clinic at the hospital and said we were heading in to see them. It was a tough ride for Alex but towards the end the pain had dissipated a bit.
We were expected and they put an IV line into Alex's port and took some blood. Dr. L came in and poked and prodded a bit. The we went for an xray of his lower abdomen.
The xray showed some pretty significant blockage in the bowel. One of the drugs, Vincristine, is known for gumming up the works but under the heading of learning something new everyday, I didn't know that your works could be gummed up ... but still working. Seems that you can have a fairly major blockage but other stuff flows around it and you think and feel you're normal - until suddenly you don't. Bizarre if you ask me. So just add more fluid, some magic powder mixed in a drink for a couple of days and it should sort itself out. In theory.
We got home Thursday afternoon and Alex was a bit better but not feeling great. Friday, he had the same bad pain for about an hour in the morning and didn't feel great, ate and drank very little. Saturday was a bit better, still a pain in the morning but he ate and drank a bit. He was sick to his stomach occasionally off and on all three days.
Yesterday was bad. Alex had a vicious pain for an hour and was quite sick in the morning. I phoned in and talked to the on-call doc and we decided to wait and see how things went as the pain was gone by this point and he had drunk a little. But in the early afternoon Alex started throwing up - and did so all evening and all through the night, the poor guy.
We felt so badly for Alex. Just a couple of days earlier he was so keen on going trick or treating (it's my last year, Dad, you can't go when you're fourteen) and since he was three or four we have always had a street party and fireworks, co-produced with our unbelievably great neighbours the Richardsons. And it seemed entirely feasible that it would happen. Instead we hung out at home (did I mention we've rented a new house? More on that later then) and Cynthia zipped the other kids around to the different parties and things.
We were up all night and then headed in to the hospital about 8:30 this morning. Alex was feeling and looking pretty miserable but at least there was no pain this morning. Same drill, access the port, take the blood, see the doctor. They're so great here, such great professionals.
The xray was repeated. From the same angle and another one from a new angle standing up. The good news was the blockage seemed all cleared up. This left, and leaves a bit of a mystery - what was causing all the nausea? The xray showed unusually clear definition of the ridges in the intestine, suggesting that maybe there had been, or was, or, less likely, starting to be, some inflammation, maybe a result of the blockage and treating that or maybe from an infection. Infections are bad - especially when you have few or no white blood cells. Really bad!
So, as a precaution, Alex has been admitted to hospital and we will spend the night here. He is getting fluids by an IV and will do so until noon or so tomorrow if everything goes according to plan. He's still feeling pretty rotten but hasn't complained once. Hasn't complained about Halloween, missing the party, or feeling rotten. Star.
Cynthia has brought us our necessities and the Giants just won the World Series. But why can't we find the Canucks game on TV?
