Sunday

Brody has been doing both good and bad this week. He did real well managing his nausea this chemo round. As usual, he didn't eat much of anything for about a day and a half. His appetite came back pretty good on Wednesday. He didn't vomit at all for the first time (his first 2 days after the 3 drug chemo is usually rough for him) He has been complaining of leg pain intermittently and a lot of the time it hurts him bad enough he won't stand on it. We believe he is getting some referred pain from the nerves up near where they did surgery… the pain is in his left calf which is the same place it hurt when he was initially hospitalized in march. We are hoping it will resolve itself but if it continues til Monday we will mention it to his doctor on Monday. We did all go swimming in the pool on Wednesday and Brody and his buddy Lucy kept wanting to climb up the ladder and jump into the water with me catching them—it wasn't bothering him at all when he did that. It is not consistent pain at all.

He was supposed to start his radiation therapy on Thursday but they pushed it back to this Monday so the radiation oncologist could do some more planning on how they will irradiate the area. We are not looking forward to the radiation therapy. He will have to be sedated if he cannot lay perfectly still and he did not seem to tolerate the anesthesia well (he had nausea that night) when he was put under for his planning appointment. That and the radiation therapy will cause nausea and lack of appetite. He will be getting the radiation therapy at Flower hospital (he has been treated up til now at Toledo hospital) and will have to be there before 7 am on Monday thru Friday for the entire cycle… we will have to get on a much earlier daily routine which is difficult in the evening when it doesn't get dark til 9 pm. I'm (Bill) is the only one that wakes up that early on a regular schedule for my job.

While Brody is getting the radiation therapy (at least 5, but probably 6 weeks) he will not be doing his weekly Vincristine (chemo) that he normally does as an outpatient. He does have to go and get blood drawn on Monday and he will get another blood transfusion if he needs it—he has needed it the last 3 times he got this chemo combination so the likelihood is high.

That's about it—as usual he has been kind of stubborn about taking his meds but has been doing it and has been keeping them down—he just likes causing stress for Mom and Dad…