Another Busy Week

We all had another busy week. As always, Homeschooling the boys is a chore and a joy. Easy and fun when they will listen, frustrating when not.

Brody's right nephrostomy tube was capped until wednesday. On wednesday Brody didn't feel too good. He vomited and was tired and wanted to take a nap-- we went ahead and hooked his nephrostomy bag back up to his tube (in case this was making him feel bad). When he woke he had a slight fever-- almost 101 which had us nervous enough to call Brody's Oncologist and get Brody admitted Wednesday night-- they took blood, urine, and stool cultures-- by the time he got to the hospital his fever was gone and he was feeling fine. Him and Trish got to bed about midnight.

His blood and urine came back fine but his stool showed a potentially dangerous bacteria (Trish can tell you more about this if she gets time)-- so they started him on an antibiotic that works well on it. His counts were low (normal low for the chemo he has been on) but not so low he couldn't start his next chemo round. Since he was feeling fine and his counts were high enough they gave him his normal IV chemo on Thursday rather then hanging out late in the day on Friday too.  Dad (me) stayed the night on Thursday night-- the doctor wrote his discharge out about 8 am Friday morning and we just had to wait for Brody to wake up to get out of there-- he woke up about 10:45am (he was up till almost midnight thursday watching Phineas and Ferb) and we were out of there before noon.

He did have an ultrasound of his kidneys on Thursday but we did not expect any hydro nephrosis (water around the kidney) since he had his bags back on. We will likely try capping them again in a week or so.

Brody is feeling fine but has to take an oral antibiotic every 6 hours which has a bad after taste-- he hates it but our tough guy takes it without a problem... he has been chasing it with "red stuff", grape juice, and goldfish crackers to get rid of the taste. Thankfully the amount he has to take is small (3 ml)

He has been feeling fine since Wednesday evening.

Trish's post about Brody's words reminded me of his other Brodyisms for his meds... which we use with him too when we tell him what we are giving him.

"No throw-up medicine" is Zofran (for Nausea)
"Swish and spit" is Nystatin (this is swished in his mouth and spit- this is to prevent thrush)
"Pink Medicine" is Bactrim (this antibiotic prevents him from getting pneumonia)
"New Medicine" is Oral Cyclophosmide (this is the chemo drug he takes daily under his latest regimen)-- was new in July when he started and it has stuck.
"Other new medicine" is the new antibiotic he is taking for his GI infection-- for 8 more days.

And his latest Brodyism is "Easy-Peasy" which he usually says when we tell him it's time to take a particular med that tastes bad but he can now take without "psyching himself up" before hand-- for alot of his meds, when they were new he would get himself all worked up and worried about it tasting bad so much that he would be so worried about throwing up he would throw up....this was a big problem the first time he was treated and any time since then he had to start a new oral med.

Anyway-- next Friday is his "off" week, he only has to go in for labs--- he starts his next chemo round the Friday after next (it is a cycle that repeats every 4 weeks)- he is just over 1/2 way through his 3rd round.

Here is hoping we have an uneventful week-- at our house generally speaking, no news is good news.

Bill