Day 89: A Short Ways Down a Long Road

It’s hard to believe that tomorrow marks 3 months since our family was changed forever by Cristian’s diagnosis. We are thankful that we have access to medical care which is saving Cristian’s life, but that does not mean this has been easy for any of us. Each day has presented us with new challenges, and occasionally rays of sunshine where we are able to see our little boy before all of this started.

Over the past week Cristian has been receiving chemo on a daily basis, either at the hospital for our weekly visits or via home administered doses. This has had an impact on his energy levels and has him looking a little pale. Today’s appointment uncovered that he has lost almost 2 lbs in the past week despite being on a twice daily appetite stimulant. Additionally Cristian did have slightly low hemoglobin counts in his blood test, which resulted in a 3 hour transfusion of red blood cells on top of the scheduled chemo.

Thankfully during this past week Cristian’s spirits have remained high and he has actually been eating more than prior to our hospital stay. He has had an appetite for a wider variety of foods as well including chicken nuggets and milk shakes, both of which he hasn’t asked for in about 6 weeks.

We are trying everything we can to keep him eating. I am still doing the occasional trip to Whataburger at 7am with him to get french fries, but he rarely eats them. We think it is more the car ride that he wants. He has discovered that of all the fast food places we go to, Raisin Canes has the best french fries (I think he may be right).

We have been praying for Cristian on multiple areas. Overall health, shortening of treatments, weight gain, appetite, nausea, hair loss, energy levels. We have seen improvements in most of the areas and thank God for the work he is doing. We also thank all of you who are praying for Cristian as he goes through this.

For the next couple weeks his treatments will be the same as what we had today, minus the blood transfusion we hope. We are also continuing administer the chemo daily at home. Following the delays from the hospital visit and low blood counts, we are set to start the new phase of treatment June 8th. This new phase will be a whole new bailiwick and include things we aren’t looking forward to.

Not going into this next phase of treatments and stopping the chemo is the thing we are praying for the most right. Any of you who wish to agree that these treatments are no longer needed because God has healed Cristian, we ask that you pray on this along with us.