Ethan was admitted to INOVA Fairfax Hospital on Friday, July 5th to begin his 2nd chemotherapy cycle. Unfortunately, he did not tolerate this one as well as he did the first. He spent all of Saturday very sick. Vomiting nearly every 15 minutes. It was very hard on him ~ and on us as caretakers, as well.
We were discharged Sunday and he seemed touch and go all morning, but by late afternoon was bouncing back nicely. He continued to do well throughout the day and into this morning. Then, around 10:00 am this morning, he crashed. We rushed to the Doctor's office and were there until 7:00 pm tonight under close observation and receiving lots of hydration, antimedics and antibiotics. In the midst of it all, he began running a very rapidly-rising fever which in half an hour rose to 101.6 and hit 103.1 before we got it under control.
His blood counts are decent and he began to respond to Dr. Horn's efforts by the end of the afternoon, so we once again averted a re-admission to the hospital. We're expecting a home nurse to arrive any minute to teach us how to use our new home IV equipment so that we can hydrate him through the night. We'll go back into the office tomorrow and take it from there.
Dr. Horn's got a few new tricks that we plan on trying for cycle #3 that should curve some of the vomiting next time. Its all a learning experience and each bad reaction teaches us a little bit more about how his body handles treatment.
On a different subject, I opened a package today that nearly made ME vomit. Children's Hospital returned Ethan's slides to us. Tumor slides, that is. These are pieces of the actual tumor that they put on the slides and used to do the Pathology. I had not eaten all day and was devouring some Chinese food when the package caught my eye. This was NOT a good combination. But at least Ethan can finally get a straight answer on the color of his "lumpy".
All and all, we're all doing pretty well. Thanks for your continued support and prayers.
Kim, Bert, Ethan and Kyra