Week 40

Thanks for all the comments...

While Brody got his last chemo on Monday, he is still under treatment for a few more weeks. He goes in for labs tomorrow and may need blood again... not sure since he got blood last monday and he never did that before-- he has also needed platelets several times lately too so he may need one or the other this week some time... He will likely go back in for labs on thursday and then again next monday (week 41). Our dog Tori will be coming back home that week.. she lived with Trish's cousin near Columbus, OH for several months but was keeping neighbors up with her barking and so then moved to Trishs parents house near Lebanon, OH. Tori has visited several times when Brody's counts were up.

Week 42 is an eval week. Which means he will likely go in for a CT scan and probably labs one more time. When they do this he has to drink a contrast liquid so they can get good pics... he had problems drinking this in the past and the last time (about week 26 or so) he ended up getting it via an NG tube (a tube fed up his nose and down to his stomach)-- not sure which he hates more so we plan on letting him decide. We are cautiously optamistic that they won't see anything.

Beyond that this is what we can expect--

We have not got this from his doctors but Trish read that he apparently he has to continue his oral meds for several months (we both assumed he would stop them relatively soon)-- which means Nystatin (swish and spit 3 x per day) to prevent thresh (mouth sores) and Bactrim (antibiotic- to prevent pneumonia due his compromised immune system) twice a day on Fri, Sat, & Sun (we will likely be moving this to different days so his weekends are funner)-- and  we will likely continue his zofran for nausea-- a bit-- at least a few weeks.

There is always a chance for re-occurance. I don't like to think about odds or percentages because those are just numbers-- my reasoning is that for any one person, the chance of re-occurance is either 0% or 100%. I will say the longer he goes without it re-occuring, the smaller the chance that it will re-occur later on.

What that means to his treatment is that he will be screened (CT scans we assume) every 3 months for the first year, every 6 months for a while, and then yearly beyond that.

As most of you can imagine, this has been a trying year for our whole family. Everybody has been amazing in how they have dealt with all this-- Brody just being able to put up with all this and still being able to smile and laugh about most things, his Brothers doing all the little things to make him happy-- giving him his way without too much protest- Brody played the cancer card alot- when his Brothers wouldn't let him have his way. Our family and friends stepping up when we needed them. Our employers and co-workers being flexible with us-- I work a rotating shift (4 weeks of days, 4 weeks of nights)-- and I was able to arange my schedule so that I kept on our shift rotation (it gave me days off during the week) but did not have to work nights which made everything easier on us. Trish's employer let her pick her days pretty much-- she only worked their part time and but she cut back her hours even more when Brody got sick... there could be a thousand things I could list... she was scheduled to work Christmas but got it off...

While trying our patience (Brody can be ornery-- he likes to see how far he can push peoples patience at times) , this experience has made me appreciate the moments--every smile and laugh and every hug. I learned the only way I could face anything like this was one day at a time-- and in my case I focused on his treatment as a series of steps that had to be made in order-- down to taking his meds each day. With so much out of your control, I felt that each step was something I could control. Not sure if any of that made sense to anyone.

We will continue to write to the blog for a while-- but as his treatments taper off, our posts should too-- we do plan on having some fun the next few months and will be sure to post up pics and vids-- we have a trip to Orlando, a trip to Hilton head south carolina planned, and are trying to plan a trip out west too. 

The Orlando trip is going to be paid for by the Make a wish foundation. The Hilton Head trip is provided by a group called "Hilton Head Heroes" which will provide us lodging for a week down there-- we just have to get ourselves there. We will be paying for the trip out west ourselves-- just haven't worked out the details-- we had been waiting for my vacation schedule to be finalized.

Thats about it for now....

More later... Bill