Day 291: Chemo A Day Early

Over the past week we have continued to give Cristian the chemo at home as directed by the doctor. He had been holding up pretty well with high energy and great attitude, until we got to the weekend. Come Sunday Cristian had stopped being hungry, and started complaining of nausea. Things got so bad that he didn’t really want to play and spent most of his time laying down in his favorite comfort spot. Monday we started noticing spots on Cristian’s body which are a called petechiae, a symptom of low blood platelets.

Unfortunately these symptoms are planned based on the high amounts of chemo that Cristian is receiving. His blood counts are very low across the board which impact not only immunity (ANC), blood clotting (platelets), and energy (red blood cells). We have been tracking these numbers and seen a steady decrease over the past months. Again this is planned and the ultimate goal of this phase.

Seeing Cristian getting worse and wanting to make sure he wasn’t getting into a dangerous territory, we called the dr to see if we needed to come in early. We have a planned weekly appointment for the following day, but wanted to be safe. Based on a conversation with the nursing staff and dr, it was determined Cristian was still in a safe spot based on his symptoms. Specifically we were told that as long as Cristian doesn’t have nose or gum bleeding, headaches, fever, or trouble waking from sleep, then we were safe. A couple hours later and following bath time we noticed red spots on his teeth near the gum line. This was a sign we were told to watch out for, so we headed to the hospital instead of waiting for the following day.

Once we arrived the staff did a quick visual inspection of Cristian and was able to determine that he would need platelets based on his bruising and petechiae. We proceeded to do a full blood panel to see what else he needed, and determined that he needed red blood cells as well. To top things off we went ahead and administer the chemo that Cristian would have received at our scheduled appointment. This made for a long impromptu appointment, good time for a nap.

By just before 6 we had everything wrapped up and we’re heading home. At that point Cristian was already showing signs of improvement compared to when we came in that afternoon. His energy and attitude was better and his color had returned. The bruising and spots should clear up over the next day or so. Once we arrived home Cristian was pretty relaxed and went to be early. We look forward to a good day tomorrow, and we don’t have to go back to the hospital!

This coming week should be very low key for us. No planned meds at home, including no daily chemo. This break should allow his body to rest and begin recovering until we go back next week. We are going to be watching for symptoms like we saw this week, which mean his body would need another infusion. We thank God for keeping us out of the hospital and returning us home safely! We are so thankful to have our family together!