Almost to Maintenance!

Cool ice sculptures eh?  Today was our last treatment of Interim Maintenance II.  Now he has a two week break and then he starts the next and final phase which is called Maintenance and lasts until July 19th, 2014.  This phase consists of less trips to primary children's, but more chemo at home.  He is in a clinical trial so the day he starts he gets randomized into one arm of four different possible treatment plans.  We don't know what his exact plan will be until he gets randomized, but we have a general idea.  He will take a pill called Mercaptopurine (6mp) every day.  He will take a methotrexate pill once a week, and then a five day pulse of dexamethasone with vincristine either once per month or once every three months depending on which arm of the study he ends up in.  The chemo that he gets at home usually does not cause hair loss, so his hair will keep on a growing now.  That's a little scary cause I think people are more likely to remember to be careful around him when he looks like he has cancer, now that he will start to look like a normal kid, it will be harder to remember that his immune system will still have its ups and downs for the next three years.  ugh.  Here's hoping for lots of ups, they try to keep it at a certain level during this time, but I guess sometimes it is not easy to get it stabilized.

Taking vitals...weight today was 15.4kg, (33.9lbs) that's up a little : )  and I actually remembered to take note of his height today, 94.1cm.  That means he has grown 2.1 cm since diagnosis day. I don't really know what that means, I'll have to find some kind of growth chart and see. 

In the zone getting ready for port access

Now back in infusion waiting for the drugs...Notice he is leaning forward, playing pretty attentively, in fact he entertains everyone there cause he always makes loud sound effects when he is fighting someone playing Kung fu Panda on the xbox, sometimes he will even stand up and jump a little cause he is so into the game.  He was pretty animated today...

...until they started pumping the methotrexate in, then he sat back in his chair and was a lot more calm.  He won't ever admit that he doesn't feel good, but I could tell today that it was affecting him, it was interesting to watch.  He recovered quickly however and is as lively as ever tonight. : )

On our way home!  he got a blanky and a lightning Mcqueen pillow pet from his hh nurse so he got to snuggle with them all the way there and back.  We are excited for this little 'break' before he starts taking daily pills.  ANC 900! : )  That means he was able to play with cousins a teeny bit during Christmas break.  WBC 2.3, RBC 3.58, HCT 30.6, PLTS 220