Week 33

Brody got his week 33 chemo last night and stayed the night as scheduled... doing ok but did vomit once right after they gave it to him... He has been getting a 2nd anti nausea drug this time staggered with the first and has been ok since... it did knock him out and he has been a bit wobbly walking. He seems to feel fine but has no appetite... playing wii right now. He only woke up twice overnight at 1 am and 4 am... I didn't manage to fall back asleep after he woke up at 4... Brody managed to sleep til 9am.

There was a question a few posts back about what happens after he is done with his chemo in January... I reposted the response below...

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Sorry for the late response... We are not exactly sure, but from what we understand he will be monitored periodically for re-occurance... we are not sure how often.... Althouh his last chemo round is scheduled for Jan 10th (if he stays on schedule)-- he will need bloodwork done for a few weeks as he recovers. His last chemo is week 39-- however week 42 (Jan 31) of the regimen is listed as (EVAL)-- so possibly another CT that day... not exactly sure... as you can imagine it is hard too look out too far ahead-- we live pretty much day to day around here since all this went down.
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Really not much more to report...we expect his nausea and lack of appetite last another day or so.

Week 32

Tomorrow gets his week 32 treatment (vincristine only)... He ended up needing platelets when he went in on thursday for labs after getting blood on monday.

He has been feeling good and just ate a bunch for dinner.  More later...

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Week 31

As expected Brody needed blood again thus week... at hospital 9 to almost 5 on monday... Brody did well again... he hung out with dad and we watched netflix on a laptop and dvds on a portable player... his counts should be coming up quickly now.

He goes back for labs on thursday and then labs and vincristine (chemo) on monday...

Mire later

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Week 30

Brody continued his treatment on schedule this week. He was admitted on Monday and received his 3 drug chemo combo and stayed the night at the hospital with Dad. He did have a bit of a problem with nausea and vomited twice about an hour before he was due for his next zofran (anti nausea medicine) dose each time. It did not persist too much into Tuesday although he didn’t have much of an appetite that day. He did give us a bit of a scare while at the hospital  when he got a pretty good fever on Tuesday… it lasted about 4 hours or so and then went away as quickly as it appeared. We are supposed to take him to the hospital if he ever gets a fever above 101.5 and he was above this—he did leave the hospital on Tuesday night about 9:15 pm (we thought he might have to stay that night too)… we checked him every 2 to 3 hours the next 24 hours and it did not return (and he didn’t get any meds to mask it – Tylenol/motrin/asprin). We are very paranoid about germs around him and have no idea what was up with the fever that came and went so fast.

His appetite has not returned as fast as in previous weeks so we will see how this plays out… he had been eating pretty good the last 2 weeks before the last chemo dose and had been gaining some weight back.

He continues his treatment on Monday (week 31) with labs (and blood likely again), and his 1 chemo drug of Vincristine….

He will get Vincristine each week now till week 36 (3 drug combo on week 33 and 36) and then his final chemo dose will be week 39 (3 drug combo).

He will come in for labs at least once per week til week 42--- when he is supposed to be evaluated again.

I’m sure Brody will be very happy when Mom and Dad stop pestering him to take his oral meds anywhere from 3 to 10 times a day… (depending on where he is in his cycle of treatment).

The other 2 boys are doing pretty well too…. Homeschooling can be difficult at times but both Geordi and Jaden seem to be doing pretty well in their school work. As we mentioned previously, we withdrew the boys from the online school they were attending—while the curriculum was ok, we felt there was a fair amount of fluff and they were wasting time on stuff that was too easy and the boys seemed relatively bored with it.

Mom and our neighbor Barbie who has been helping a lot came up with a pretty good curriculum… Jaden’s reading skills are really picking up and he is already pretty good at sounding out a lot of words and is keeping up on his schedule of learning his site words. He has been doing well in his math too.

Geordi was already a good reader and good at math and we feel he is now being challenged in his curriculum and (most of the time) having more fun. He has been learning his times tables and making good progress. He does need to work on his writing skills somewhat. He can write pretty well but just doesn’t like doing it—the hard part is getting him to think of things to write…. He had a pretty easy time a few days ago writing about how he doesn’t like to write.

We do utilize a few web sites –

Raz-kids.com (was used in the online school the boys were attending)—it is a good reading site that we signed up for a personal subscription.

IXL.com—is a pretty good math site… it covers everything and also has skills organized by individual state standards… it could use some organizing.

Spellingcity.com – this is actually being used by the 2^nd grade at Whitehouse Elementary school where the kids will attend. The mom of a kid who was in Geordi’s class the last 2 years told me about it and I was able to get to his spelling word lists—it has spelling workd games and can test him too… in addition I was able to join the site for free and create my own lists for Jaden… So we have been putting all his site words on their too.

Our other bit of news is that Geordi got his cast off his broken arm a few weeks ago and had been wearing a brace… he was scared to remove it but finally did and his arm doesn’t seem to be bothering him anymore…

I think that’s it for us…

More later…

Bill

Enjoyed a trip to Pine Mtn State Resort in Kentucky and a visit to Bean Station TN

Brody has been having a good week this week.  He got blood again last Monday and went in for labs again this past Monday.  He did not have to get chemo last week or this week and has been feeling much better this week than he has in a very long time.  We decided to take advantage of this little break in his chemo regimen (this break is part of the regimen he has been following.  He's still on schedule) and we headed for a short trip to the mountains with Papaw and Grandma.  Papaw rented us a cabin for all of us to stay in for 2 nights in Pine Mountain State Resort in Kentucky.  The cabin was very nice, had plenty of room for all of us, and a great view.  Although the boys were a little worried that the cabin might be overcome by bears.  The boys have spent a lot of time in the evenings lately watching Bill play a Playstation game that is set in the old west and involves a lot of killing of Grizzly bears to sell for stuff you need in the game.  The bears in the game are very aggressive.  So the boys are a bit petrified of bears.  There were several signs in the mountains about the black bears that live there.  The boys wanted pepper spray and large sticks and for Papaw to have his knife before we could go hiking.  We didn't buy the pepper spray.  We convinced the boys that spraying a bear with pepper spray might just make the bears really angry.  But they made sure Papaw had his pocket knife and each boy took their time to find a mighty stick.  I think Papaw thoroughly enjoyed teasing the boys and scaring them by pretending to be a bear and growling and scratching at the cabin walls from outside the cabin. 
We enjoyed a mile hike to "chain rock."  We didn't see any bears on our journey but we did find a lost beagle dog who managed to find his owner before we left the trail.  "Chain Rock"is a large rock that has a giant chain to hold it from falling off the mountain into the town of Pineville, Ky below.  It was an awesome view on the hike to and at Chain Rock.  We also did a shorter hike to Pinnacle Overlook in Cumberland Gap.  The boys got to stand on Kentucky and Virginia at the same time on this hike.  They thought that was pretty neat.  They really wanted to hike to a spot where they could stand on Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia all at the same time but we decided not to do that on this trip because it had started raining and the trails were getting slippery and Brody had to be carried through much of the mountain hiking trails we had already done.  We'll have to come back on a future trip to do that trail.  Once it started raining we headed to Bean Station to visit family there.  We got to see Uncle Bill, Aunt Evelyn and cousins Chris, Tina, Christina and Hannah and Precious (Evelyn's black poodle).  The boys had a great time playing with Precious, petting Chris's horses and playing hide n go seek in the back yard.  This morning when we got in the van to head back home, Brody said he wanted to go to Tenessee again to see "the little black dog."  I had to tell Brody that hopefully Precious would come up at Christmas time to Ohio and he could play with her then.  Evelyn made us all a fabulous meal that we all really enjoyed.  I really need to learn how to make chicken n dumplins.
Well Dad (Papaw) is just pulling off the exit to Monroe, OH.  We will soon be to Papaw and Grandma's house where we will load into our van and I'll drive us the rest the way home.

The boys were on Alert for bears while hiking in the mountains

The boys with Papaw and Grandma at an overlook in Pine Mtn State Resort

The boys in the Smoky Mountains

The boys and I had a great time the last 2 days at Pine Mtn State Resort in Kentucky with Papaw and Grandma.