Spring is in the air...

Today was a beautiful day here in the north country. The sun was shining brightly all day. The drive to Syracuse was nice for a change. Even Michael commented on how good the sunshine felt streaming in the car windows. Here is a picture of Michael in his car seat, ready to make our weekly jaunt to Syracuse. You'll notice from that big smile on his face, he has no apprehension whatsoever.

Our appointment was in the morning this week and things seemed to progress more smoothly than our typical afternoon appointments. Michael told the nurse that was taking his vitals that his port has been hurting "a little" for the last couple of days. She told him she understood because sometimes her port "just hurt" and proceeded to show him her port. It was nice since she is the first person that Michael has talked to that also has a port. She checked his site really well and said everything looked fine, which was a relief.

Next, one of the nurses accessed Michael's port and drew some blood for his lab tests. Everything came back great. All of his counts were back up where they should be. I had a feeling they would be up this week since the last couple of days have been wonderful for Michael. His energy level and appetite were both great. Dr. Kennedy had called on Monday and told us to stop giving Michael the maintenance antibiotic, Bactrim, so we did. She feels that the Bactrim could have been suppressing his bone marrow and keeping his counts down. She said from now on, Michael will receive an antibiotic intravenously once a month. The only downside to that is that it will add an hour to his treatment on the weeks he gets the antibiotic.

There was a pizza party for lunch in the oncology unit. We also had cake in celebration of today being the last treatment for a 3 year old little girl (after 60 weeks). Then Michael settled in and watched a couple of movies.

Michael receives Benadryl through his IV for nausea and it makes him sleepy and grouchy. The nurses call it the "Benadryl grumps". One of the nurses said Michael gets them about as bad as any kid she has seen (not a good thing). In fact, today he had fallen asleep and woke up when his treatment was done. It took 4 of us to hold him down so they could remove the needle. I hope that doesn't happen again!

Michael ate almost nonstop while he was getting his treatment today (while he was awake) and then he asked us to stop and get some chicken nuggets and fries on the way home. I will post again in a couple of days to let everyone know how Michael is doing. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers, JoAnne