Start of Interim Maintenance - Kinda

Day 123 of treatment...and eating like a trucker.

Start of Interim Maintenance

Yesterday we started the third phase of treatment -Interim Maintenance (IM). For this phase we will be following the protocol of a new study. The difficult part is we'll be doing high dose chemo treatments every other week for the next two months. Each treatment is administered over 24-hours and requires several days in the hospital.

On Tuesday we went to the clinic to get accessed and have our blood count checked. All looked good - Carson's ANC was up to 780, just slightly higher than the 750 required for the high dose chemo treatment at the hospital.

We immediately left the clinic and went to the hospital where Carson had his spinal area flushed with chemo (another part of starting IM). This, of course, was done with the help of some "happy juice"...which Carson was looking forward to. We are fortunate to have some really awesome meds. Carson remembers absolutely NOTHING about the spinal procedure!

After the spinal procedure we were admitted to the Pediatric Oncology ward upstairs. Weren't we just here? We said "Hi" to the nurses - whom we all know by name. The difference from last week is this time we got a huge room! Yeah!!

The Snag

But then we ran into a bit of a snag. The hospital drew more blood and, according to the hospital's pathology, Carson's ANC was only 680...NOT high enough to start the high dose chemo.

Not a problem. The ANC is close. All the indicators are there showing it will come up soon, so the doctor says we'll just wait this out. By morning we should be fine, right?

Fast forward 12 hours and here I sit staring at the report from this morning's blood work. At the bottom of the page is a handwritten note in red ink, "ANC 576". What?!? It's falling??

Now What?

So, now we are on to Plan B...or is it Plan F? Whichever, the plan now is to try this again on Monday. Ugh. Monday, November 16th, happens to be Carson's birthday. Now it looks like he'll be spending his 4th birthday in the hospital getting some really nasty chemo.

Not exactly what we were hoping for. Hopefully the presents will make up for it.

Thanks for all the prayers!!!

Paul.