Tummy bug

Here's Ty Sep 29th, a couple of days after his third Delayed Intensification treatment.  He felt pretty good considering and was up and hanging out with us most of the time

This is how he felt on Oct 1st.  He slept on and off all day, and that night he started to have diarrhea.  Yep that's right, after everything we did to keep him from getting the tummy flu he got it anyway.  One of the other kids unwittingly brought it home and it has been plaguing us ever since. We even spread it to some cousins when we were in Utah last weekend...sorry cousins!  :(   Lets just say we've gone through a lot of lysol, clorox wipes, laundry soap, and hand sanitizer and the dastardly bug still got to him.  grrrrr

We went ice blocking that day, Ty sat in the shade...

and snuggled on mommy. He didn't want any food even though he's on dexamethasone (makes you really hungry) and zofran (keeps you from puking).   Sunday we started to wonder if his red counts were getting low because of how lethargic he was... and starting to worry about what to do about his sickness.  We called the PCMC oncologist on call and he told us to go have him evaluated by a local doc, see if he needs fluids for dehydration and get a cbc while we are at it.  So up we went to PMC, met our favoritest nurse in the whole world Michelle up there, and she got us onto the peds floor to wait for the doc (that way we don't have to go to the ER)  His blood counts were ok, ANC 200, HCT 35, PLTS 119 ish, I forgot to ask for a copy so I don't know exact numbers.  Those numbers aren't stellar, but ok for a chemo kid.  They gave him some IV fluids and we went home.

Today (Monday Oct 3) the diarrhea is worse, frequent, and tonight he puked a bazillion gallons all over the bathroom floor.  I managed to get him to sip root beer all day so I was happy about keeping him at least a little bit hydrated.  I was even more excited when he started asking for milk thinking he must be feeling a little better.  Apparently not.  His hair is thinning a lot right now, don't know if he'll lose it all but if he is going to it will be during this phase. 

He wieghs 14.0 kg right now, down from 14.5 on Tuesday. (30.8 lbs down from 31.9)  We got some pictures from Camp Hobe (back in June) today and I was so surprised to see his chubby little steroid face in those pics.  So I added a pic from back then so we could compare...

Taken May 15th, 2011.  Steroid chubs ahoy, he got even more chubby than this.  You can see on his neck the steri strips from the surgery (April 23) haven't fallen off yet.  There's a little tube inside that goes from his port (bandaid on his chest) up to those steri-strips and then down to his heart where all his meds are delivered.  Of course you can't see it, you couldn't even see his port through all the cute chubs...but now you can!  If you look closely at the pic below... 

 

His port sticks way out now, you can even see through his skin the three bumps that distinguish it as a power port.  And if you look close you can see the little tube running up to that scar on his neck.  They told us this would happen, to let him eat eat eat during induction cause he would lose all that weight during the rest of treatment.  That is easier to hear than it is to watch.

So long story short he feels like crap.  Mom and Dad are worried, he's not in dire circumstances but he could use some prayers.  We just hope his little neutropenic body can get rid of the tummy bug and SOON.  Seeing him like this brings to the surface all of the fears that you keep way deep down inside.  He has done so well so far that the idea of him being part of the 5% that don't survive SR ALL hasn't really crossed our minds too often.  We know he is not really ours and that we don't get to decide which percent he is a part of, but we do know that one road is much more painful than the other.  What we have right now is hope and faith that the Lord knows what is best for our family and for Ty Ty.  Thanks for the prayers, we hope to do a good news blog very soon!