Tuesday into Wednesday

Tuesday was quite a day. Dante really did so well all day, despite the start of a cold. He was in a great mood and charming all the nurses. I couldn't believe it to watch them all crowd around him and just enjoy his company. Although, I guess we always knew about his charms.

The GFR test wasn't that bad - it just sounded long. Then again, they did draw an awful lot of blood for a kid who's only 3 feet tall and weighs in around 31 lbs....
Our office visit went well. His ANC jumped up to 14,100 due to the GCSF, so now we get to stop the injections. His platelets were still low, but nowhere near as low as last week, so no transfusion needed. The CT scan went OK. He was super tired right before, so it took him almost an hour to wake up after sedation. And when he did he looked really puffy and flushed. He had to be intubated so his throat was real scratchy sounding. We could tell he just didn't feel well.

He started to feel warm when we brought him home and he had a low grade fever, so we got him in the bath to cool him off. He feel asleep almost as soon as he hit the pillow. His fever started to go up and Chris and I were obviously concerned. If his fever goes over 101, we are supposed to go to the hospital. We both felt like he just needed some good rest and he would be OK. Well, his fever did go up, so we begged the on call doctor to let us stay home and let him sleep and then we would come in the morning. She said we really shouldn't wait, but if we wanted to check his temperature hourly to make sure it didn't spike, that was the alternative. As soon as Chris and I got packed for the hospital and loaded up the car, his fever dropped to 99. It hovered around 100 all night until about 5am when it dropped to normal. I never changed out of my clothes and checked his temperature every 45 minutes or so. His cold seemed to get worse and since he doesn't know how to cough, his breathing was really raspy all night long.

We went to the office this morning and were quite loopy from our lack of sleep. They took a blood culture and if any funk starts to grow in the petri dish, we have to go to the hospital. His ANC dropped to 12,800 (still 4000 points above normal - thank you GCSF) but everything else was about the same. Dr. Barbosa went over to get our CT results.

I know that Dr. B is being cautious and all, but he came into the room as if he had really bad news. The CT scan showed that the tumor in his back was gone. The other tumors are now so small, there were no measurements, and it's unclear if they are actual tumors or just scar tissue. So, good news, but nothing conclusive yet. He said the PET scan and the AFP will help us to determine how much is cancerous. However, he said he thought Dante would benefit from 2 more rounds of chemo. We just sort of said, we will wait to see the results of the PET scan before moving ahead with more chemo.

Chris and I are realistic in our outlook, but still very hopeful. We really don't want to subject Dante to more chemo than necessary. We would rather get a more accurate determination and then decide. All along, we have been hoping to be told it was all gone, but really thinking he would need a little more chemo, because there's no such thing as having just a little bit of cancer. Kinda like being pregnant...

Dante did not have a fever all day today, but he certainly did not feel well. I swear if he told me to wipe his nose one more time today, I was going to scream. The kid's nose was just non stop all day (must get that from his father - oh, wait. no, that's mouth. Well, come to think of it, it's both.) I'm hoping that by tomorrow, he starts to feel a little better.








waiting for CBC results







We are looking forward to a quiet Thanksgiving at home with our family and Uncle Dave. Chris is doing most of the cooking with all of his mom's holiday recipes and I'm throwing in a couple of my mom's recipes as well. We are looking forward to eating and just being thankful...







drawing blood for the culture after his high fever.

















not feeling so good about feeling like crap.