Milestones

10 February 2012: Day 238--Finished with intensive

Today we are celebrating, and with good cause: Adam finished the intensive part of his treatment when the last dose of chemo was given at 3:30pm this afternoon. I wasn't sure it would happen after the suspense of the week and yesterday's drama, but it did. The only slight catch was that the doctor had to give the chemo as Adam only has a peripheral IV line just now, and there is a danger to his tissue if the line breaks and the chemo spills into his arm, but it all went very well and we were out by 4pm.

We started the party at Casa di Gelato on King street, with two of their famous ice cream sundaes--here are the boys ready to tuck in:

Mom and sister helped of course!!

Not much partying tonight as Adam has to spend one more night in hospital to finish up his IV antibiotics. He's out tomorrow morning though, and no looking back!

The top line of this post refers to my journal entry for today. It has been eight months--238 days--since Adam's diagnosis on June 18, 2011. This is not the end--he will start maintenance soon and that lasts for at least 18 months. He will need another port. He will be in hospital again someday soon enough. But it is both an end to the intensive, frightening, always changing part of treatment and a beginning of reclaiming some whisper of a normal life amidst the howling winds of the "long term illness". For now, we are content.

Well done Adam, you are a champion and a testimony to the power of living in the present and soldiering on to the end with your head held high and your cloud of witnesses surrounding you.

Best laid plans...

Today has been another example of what I affectionately refer to as "The Brock Circus", otherwise known as our life.

Today we combined all of the following in a 12 hour period: a funeral, chemotherapy, school, a hospital stay, a birthday party and two trips to Sainsburys. As you do.

This morning I went to the funeral of a friend and our former neighbour Geoff Banks, who passed away last month from cancer. I really wanted to go even though I knew it would be hard, but I wasn't prepared for how emotional I became. I started crying when I walked in the door and saw his picture and his children greeting the attendees. I started sobbing (the embarrassing kind with snotty sniffs and all) when his sons went forward to carry the casket. I miss Geoff, and am saddened at his life shortened...but I am also all too aware that it was shortened by the same disease that we are currently fighting in Adam. It was a beautiful service and his family held up well--all the same the experience left me drained as I confronted for 45 minutes all that I don't want to think about and hope and pray I never have to.

Next stop, Adam's school to collect him and head to the hospital for his chemo appointment. It was all going swimmingly and on time too--we were on target to get to his brother's birthday party that started at 4pm, because by the way it was Caleb's birthday today! (I will post pics in another post soon) I wanted Adam's chemo done early so that he could play with Caleb and the others at the party. One of the medicines he was due today requires an hour afterward to make sure he doesn't react, and I had allowed extra time for that. So far so good.

Then I noticed that he felt warm, and saw some little red dots appearing over his stomach and back. I asked the nurse to check his temp and it was well above normal, 39.2. Going to the party now? Fail. The nurse suggested we go to his room to rest a bit and see how he got on...well, within 10 minutes he was vomiting repeatedly and his fever had gone up to 39.7. I'm not even going to try at this time of night to do the calculations...needless to say it was much too high to even think about going home. Blood cultures, check. Full blood count, check. Vomiting bowl, check. Waiting, check. Change my clothes as soon as possible? Check!!

Brian walked up after depositing Caleb and Agnes at the party and designating someone to watch them...luckily I had booked an indoor play place at the last minute, having changed my mind about doing it myself at home. Phew! So he walked in and I handed him a stinky, sleepy and retching Adam and headed to the car--I had the cake in the car so had to get it to the party at some point! The kids were having a great time and everything went smoothly from there. I have great friends--did I say that clearly enough? GREAT friends, who drop everything and put my children to bed so that I can go to the store and back up to the hospital with Brian's stuff.

At this point we have no results from the tests so are assuming it's a vomiting bug that will run it's course, sooner rather than later we hope. The IV fluids are up, he has been sleeping since 5pm, IV antibiotics just to be safe and still waiting to see how he is tomorrow. Our great friends are also going to watch the kids so we can still try to get to this concert we have booked and have been looking forward to for months. Under normal circumstances I would never leave Adam in this state, nor would I ask anyone else to look after him. BUT, nothing is normal anymore and I know we have to try and trust. Our friends will take good care of him, and this is nothing that won't correct itself in a few days at most.

I will post more, including pics, when I get the next chance. It's bath and bed for this tired mum now.

The adolescence of chemotherapy

We have now officially entered "Delayed Intensification", the last (hopefully) stage of Adam's intensive treatment before the maintenance phase of the protocol begins, IF all goes well.

This was always heralded as a heavy block, with several "big guns" being used in combination with other chemo drugs, eight different drugs in total over the next 8 weeks. Adam had another lumbar puncture on Thursday, and the initial results from that were good: no Leukaemia cells in his spinal fluid, no cells apparent in his bone marrow. We are still waiting for the results from the MRD test that they send to Glasgow, they should be back next week. Those will reveal a little bit about the progress that Adam has been making, but they are not "decision material"--the biggest decisions will come at the end of this block of chemo (end of Jan).

On Friday I took all three kids up to the hospital for Adam's infusions. The whole process lasted more than three hours--which you would think with three kids in the same small room would be a nightmare. It wasn't--it was actually sweet time together: Agnes crawling around playing with various toys and using the bed rails to pull up to stand, Caleb and Adam watching TV and tucking in to corned beef hash provided by the hospital tea trolley. Caleb played hide and seek with Adam's consultant, another doctor held Agnes while I helped Adam's nurse get the infusion started. We ate, played, sang, talked and, hopefully, remembered this time. The memories of this time is the one thing that I don't want to lose--come what may this is our life right now and I want to embrace it fully.

Three hours and ten minutes later we had embraced it and were ready for BED! :)

Adam has also restarted his Dexamethasone, a high-powered steroid and building block of the chemo protocol, at nearly double the dose of before. So far, and this is still very early days, it has made him like the stereotypical teenager: moody, emotional, hungry and sleepy! Bless his heart, he is 8 going on 15 right now, but we are hopeful to make it through the week as smoothly as possible. It won't be too hard if he continues to sleep 12 hours a night!

We are well, for now. Thank you all for your support and prayers--I will update again as soon as I have anything useful to say.