Yesterday morning Cristy and Evan went to the clinic to begin the final (and longest) phase of chemotherapy known as Maintenance. This treatment schedule is set to run for the next 2+ years. In short it involves daily and weekly pills, spinal taps every three months and monthly IV drips of Vincristine and IVIG.
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| Birthday party animal. |
For some reason Evan was a bit nervous yesterday about his appointment. I'm chalking some of it up to him being hungry and tired from a busy weekend. We noticed a fairly large patch of blisters on his arm on our way to my parent's house yesterday. Initially I thought it might have been brought on by prolonged exposure to the sun combined with the chemo drugs he's on. As Cristy and I thought longer we concluded it could also be poison ivy since Nolan got it as well. What do the doctors think? Their guess is poison ivy as well. As luck would have it Evan started a week's worth of steroids as part of Maintenance so if it is indeed poison ivy this should knock it out. If not we'll be making a trip to the dermatologist I would imagine.
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| Recovering from another LP. |
As I'm typing up this blog I don't have Evan's blood counts in front of me, but in short they looked strong. A 5.x ANC and 400+ platelets. The other numbers were good too if I remember correctly. Cristy asked our primary Oncologist yesterday what we should deem successful during Maintenance. He said that the main goal is to keep Evan around a 1.0 ANC. I guess this shows that the bone marrow is stable without being over-productive. Wednesday Evan has an appointment with the ID doctor and I'm expecting to get the results from his MRI at that time.
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| Evan's first time playing with Aunt Holly's inflatable slides. |
Now on to the fun stuff. This weekend Evan got to attend one of his classmate's birthday party. When he got home the whole family broke out water guns and had a battle royale in the backyard. In hindsight it was a bit cool for this, but I don't think the kids minded. On Sunday we went to my parent's house to celebrate Easter. As usual my mom cooked way more than necessary, my sister went all out on the Easter Egg Hunt and dad suffered through the heat in a Bunny costume for the kids. It was a great day with family and friends and luckily the weather cooperated.
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| Easter Egg Hunt with the kids. |
Today Evan has cap and gown pictures at school and this weekend we're running in the Cure Lauren's Run 5K on Sunday. Rain is in the forecast, but I'm hopeful the meteorologists are off by a day. Friday and Saturday are supposed to be warm so we may try our hand with the water guns again. Evan is getting around fairly well, but still has a pronounced limp. His therapist seems encouraged with his progress so I just need to remember to remain patient while his strength returns.
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| Evan and Lily got injured meeting with the EB. |
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