We had an extremely long day at clinic on Monday, Jan. 25 - we spent a good ten hours at the clinic arriving at 6:45 am.  Oliver began the day with the standard bloodwork, then received a spinal tap with methotrexate, then received cyclophoshamide, cytarabine (ARA-C) and then 4 hours of fluids.  The fluids are to prevent irritation or blood clots in the bladder, a common side effect of the new chemo drugs.  Needless to say, he was wiped out on Monday.  He also starts a new drug, thiaguanine t...
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We took Oliver to clinic today, thankfully, he has the week off from IV chemo.  Surprisingly, his counts were very good - we are surprised because Oliver has been abnormally tired the past few days.  Some of the counts we know are not accurate because of the steriods and the doctors attribute his extreme fatigue possibly to just all of the chemo over the past few months finally catching up to him.  Oliver will get a short break from the steroids, his last dose is tonight - thank God.  He has ...

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We went to clinic yesterday for chemo treatment.  Oliver received vincristine and doxorubicin.  His counts are ok and doing what the doctors expect with the new drugs.  He resumes a very high dose of steroids this week so there are a few things we need to watch, but overall he is doing fine.  We are all just waiting to get through this last push of the delayed intensification.  He will receive a spinal tap in two weeks and start some very heavy new drugs at that time.  Thank you all for your ...

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Happy New Year everyone.  We are happy to be home and not have to spend New Year's day in the hospital.  Yesterday our waits at the clinic were longer than usual due to light staffing and holidays.  We waited three hours before Oliver received his shots of peg.  It was very hard to watch -his legs were shaking from fear of the shots but after about half an hour he was doing much better.  He had a minor reaction after the shots, so we had to stay for a little bit longer than the standard two h...
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