Day 220: Phase Complete

As we left off on our last post Cristian was doing fine with the treatments and was up playing around the room. We were fortunate that this high energy and generally good attitude continued as we got further along with the treatments. The plan was chemo for 24 hours, and introduce the “rescue” medicine at hour 42 to start help getting it out, then follow up doses every 6 hours until he clears. So far so good, on what is our last planned hospital admission to treat his leukemia.

As Thursday rolled around we approached the “make or break” tests for us to go home on time vs needing to stay longer. The determining factor here is the amount of chemo still in Cristian’s body and if the levels are low enough to be safe. The first test did not come back with good news, he was barely above the level needed. This resulted in our stay being extended until his levels were even lower than the normal release threshold. We continued to give fluids and medicine to help get the chemo out ASAP. The longer the chemo is in his system, the greater the chances are that he will get mouth sores. These higher than acceptable levels would continue for a few more days…

We finally received good news yesterday(Saturday) evening around 7pm that his chemo had dropped to a safe level. This means we now had light at the end of the tunnel for this stay and should be leaving in a few hours. Normally we would be released now since he has cleared, but on top of the chemo this stay Cristian is also receiving two additional meds. One is an immune booster that he receives monthly, and another is an antibiotic which he also receives on a monthly basis. Combined they will take about 4 hours to complete.

By the time all was said and done, it was 12:45am when we were finally released. Luckily Cristian had fallen asleep hours earlier and slept through most of the discharge process. He did wake up once we got in the car and asked to go home and see mama. Upon arrival he did not want to go to bed and instead asked to see mama who was awake anxiously awaiting our arrival. We got him settled in and by about 1:30am we were all in bed working to go to sleep.

Despite the midnight adventure we had in getting home, the day started at its normal early time. As Cristian says “the sun is up so it’s time to wake up”. (I really need to install blackout coverings in his windows, at least for the weekends haha) With everyone up we had a wonderful day together as a family. The kids were happy to be able to play and spent a good amount of it together. This is how it should be!

While this stay didn’t go as we had hoped, we are glad it is done. We are praying for no mouth sores following the treatments. We are also praying for some miracle around the next phase which is set to start in a couple weeks and be very taxing on Cristian (and the rest of the family). Thank you everyone for all you are doing, please don’t stop now!