Clinic Day and stuff

 Clinic day has become so routine that we have to add some other fun stuff...like Ty's favorite book right now.  It's No David!  He has it memorized and thinks he is super hilarious when he replaces 'David' with doodyhead.

 His sloppy joe sandwich mostly fell out on his plate...but he was actually eating it so I had to take a picture.  He doesn't like meat very often, especially spicy meat.  He weighed 18.0kg Friday (39.6lbs) at his appointment, which is down a hair.  I kind of expected that cause he didn't eat like crazy on his steroid pulse like he normally does.  Hopefully we can get lots of food down him on the steroid pulse that he started this Friday.  He always takes steroids for five days starting the day he gets vincristine.  They work together. They said he was 101.8 cm tall but I'm not convinced that's completely accurate so we'll see what it is next time and compare...I think it was 101 even last time.

 He has a cold and Thursday was threatening a fever.  He would hit 100's but then go back down.  The rule is if it stays in the 100's for more than an hour we have to call.  He was happy to see 100's because he likes going to the hospital.  Kudos to Portneuf Medical Center and Primary Children's!  I'm not sure if there are very many 5 year olds who like to go to the hospital.  We ended up not having to go.

 He also discovered Thursday that we have 2 of those thermometers and had a lot of fun measuring both ears at once. 

 Spitting in our sample cups for a study we are participating in.  They want our DNA so they can try to discover factors that indicate why people get cancer.  Maybe they will clone us too.

On our way to clinic.  Ty still holds my hair for comfort...something he picked up when he was a tiny baby.  I'm sure he would have grown out of that by now but since he still feels like junk frequently he still needs it.  I'm not in any hurry to make him grow out of it either.  I mentioned to a new mom once about a year ago that my four year old still holds my hair like a security blanket and she retorted, 'I hope my baby isn't still holding my hair when he's 4!'  We are always in such a hurry to make our babies grow up!  Ty has had to grow up too fast in a lot of ways so I have no problem with letting him be little in this little way.

 Probably one of the 'gifts' of cancer has been helping us see what matters most over and over again.  We don't sweat a lot of little things that used to seem important.

 Ty always likes shoulder rides at the hospital

 Getting his port site cleaned and ready for the 'magic sticker'

And taking a minute to play with the foot pedal sink before we left.  Our visit was quick, they took blood for a CBC and he got his vincristine and we talked to the doc for a few minutes.  His ANC shocked us a little bit, it is only 600. That's right on the border of neutropenic so we need to be a little careful about germs and stuff, we have kind of gotten out of the habit of being ultra careful now that he has done so well for so long....hence the cold I guess! They are keeping him on the same meds for now.  Hopefully that will be back up to around 1000 next month.  He's already on such low doses of his oral chemo I can't imagine them getting much lower.  The rest of his counts: WBC 2.0, RBC 3.87,  HGB 11.4, HCT 33.9, PLTS 189.  Everything is a little bit low except platelets, but not low enough to need transfusions or anything. 

Normal CBC ranges for him would be WBC 5.5-15.5, RBC 3.90-5.30, HCT 34-40, PLTS 150-400, ANC 1500-8500

Thanks for checking in!