Today is 3 months exactly since Nate's first dose of chemo, on
January 23. I haven't written for a while. Life is good. Nate has
been doing well. I've updated his treatment
calendar to cover weeks 1 through 32 of
treatment (today is part of week 14). I'll have to get around to
the next 98 weeks following that.
We've had some excitement over the last month, since my last update.
The fun part was a whirlwind trip to LegoLand in Carlsbad, CA. It's
between LA and San Diego (closer to San Diego), so it turned out to
be about 450 miles each way. We did it as a quick trip, leaving
about 5am on Thursday, April 8th. We got to the park at 1pm, and
spent the rest of the afternoon there until they closed at 6pm. We
spent most of Friday at the park. And then, on Saturday, we headed
home. It was a tun of driving. But, we had a lot of fun. Most
importantly, Nate had a lot of fun. Check out the
pictures.
Auntie Vicki came along and was a tremendous help with the boys.
Nate shared a room with her at the hotel. The first night he slept
with her in the same bed. The next night, he told her to sleep in
the other bed because she "cuddles too much ". He cracks
us up.
Christa, in all her copious spare time, managed to organize a blood
drive at Nate's pre-school. It takes a lot of 4 year olds to get a
pint of blood though. Just kidding... quite a few parents, family
and friends donated blood. I think it was like 25 people. She did
it through the Stanford blood bank. This was not a directed donor
program, donating just for Nate. This was just normal donation.
Nate has only required 2 units of red blood, and one unit of
platelets during his treatment. We'll what those numbers are when
he's done with treatment in 2006.
A few weeks ago we had a bit of a scare. Nate started running a
fever on Saturday, March 27th. Not real high, but we had two
readings over 100.3 an hour apart. That's enough to trigger an ER
visit. Of course it was 9pm at night, so Christa's mom came over
while Andrew slept, and Christa, Nate and I headed up to the
Stanford ER (and who says I don't take Christa out on Saturday
nights anymore?). The triage nurse took one look at Nate's bald
head, and steered us straight into her cubicle. She took his temp
(which had dropped slightly from home), and called and immediately
got a room for us in the ER. They don't want the cancer kids near
anyone who might be sick. And, I'm thankful for it.
So, they took blood samples from both of Nate's tubes, and we hung
out while the blood cultures and the CBC tests were completed. The
cultures came back negative for infection, and his CBC showed that
his immune system was in pretty good shape. His hemoglobin was a
little low, but not low enough to trigger a need for a transfusion
right away. By this time, his fever had gone away, and since his
ANC was good (measure of his immune system), they sent us home on
fever watch. On Sunday, he had two readings of 99.4, but the
remainder were all normal.
Nate's fever was not the scare that I mentioned... read on.
Monday, though, Andrew started running a fever. So, we figured at
this point there was a virus that the boys both got. Andrew was
pretty cranky. So, tylenol it was, and he ended up taking extra
naps. Tuesday was about the same (Nate was doing well), but in the
evening when changing Andrew for bed, we noticed a couple of red
bumps on him. That started setting off alarms for us. In January,
at Andrew's 1 year checkup, we skipped his MMR and Varicella (chiken
pox) vaccinations. Both of those are live virus vaccines, and since
Nate had a compromised immune system, we were advised to skip them.
First thing Wednesday morning, Christa hauled AJ down to the
pediatrician's office. She saw him right away, and when looking at
him, said it didn't look like chicken pox at all. In fact, it
didn't look like a virus, maybe more like an allergy or something.
There were only a couple of the spots, and they didn't feel rough or
anything. So, relieved, Christa brought him home. But, he was
still cranky and running a fever.
Our fear was chicken pox first, and measles second. Chicken pox is
one of those diseases that almost all kids get, and in general, is
fairly simple. Very few children have any severe complications from
it. The child mortality rate for normal kids age 1 - 8 is about 2
per 100,000. That's a rate of 0.002 percent. Very low. Children
who have leukemia that contract chicken pox have a mortality rate in
the range of 7 - 25%. As many as 1 in 4 will die if they catch
chicken pox.
Of course, the story isn't over yet, now is it. Wednesday afternoon
Andrew's fever broke, which was good. He started to perk right up.
So, Wednesday night, changing Andrew for bed (why didn't we just
leave him naked by this point?), we discovered his torso was covered
with a red, bumpy rash. So, now, we're not sure what this is. It
was very different from what the doctor looked at in the morning.
So, first think Thursday morning, off AJ went to the pediatrician.
She said it could either be rubella or roseola. Both are viruses.
Rubella is the German Measles, and is the 'R' in the 'MMR' vaccine.
Of course, Andrew didn't have that vaccine yet. Roseola is a common
herpes virus variant, that generally only shows up in children from
about 9 months to 2 years of age. Either case, there was nothing to
do for Andrew. However, know what it was could be important for
Nate. So, she ordered a CBC for Andrew, and he had his first real
blood draw of his life. Christa said he did great.
In the end, it ended up it wasn't rubella, so it must have been
roseolla. And, Nate never ended up with anything other than a
little bit of fever.
So, after conferring with Nate's oncology staff, we determined that
we could get AJ vaccinated for both MMR and varicella. If Andrew
caught full blow chicken pox, it would be a much greater risk to
Nate. Nate did have the varicella vaccine when he was younger, but
it's probably not very effective now. If his immune system is
really down, then it wouldn't make a bit of difference if he's been
vaccinated. If I remember right, then, Friday April 16th, AJ was
vaccinated for MMR & varicella. And, knock on wood, no issues with
Nate.
The last bit of news is that we had an ultrasound of the new baby,
and we found out that we're going to have a girl. So, Nate and
Andrew will be having a baby sister. I'm sure it's gonna get crazy
around our house...