Meds

Benjamin has been continuing his chemo at the hospital and at home. He attends school in grade 2 where all subjects are taught in French and he is in the top 3 in his class. Even when he is not feeling well, he wants to go to school. Having been mostly with adults, he loves being with kids his own age.

Everyday, Ben takes different medicine at home besides all his chemo every two weeks at the hospital. In this picture he is showing 4 different syringes with 4 diDerent chemo drugs he is taking. Some taste “OK” but some don’t taste good at all, so we mix those with juice. He plugs his nose when he drinks those but manages to swallow all of it.

We are training Ben to take pills as he is still not comfortable swallowing those but he should be able to handle pill swallowing soon.

Next Wednesday, Ben returns to the hospital to receive the doxorubicin and the dreaded ARA-C which caused his blood pressure to drop suddenly and he had to go to Intensive Care. This time they will pre-medicate him with steroids and Benadryl and give him one quarter the regular dose of ARA-C. The doctors will then monitor him

closely just in case he has another severe reaction to the ARA-C. We will be staying with him over night, as it is a 2 or 3 days procedure but it will be quite stressful for us too wondering how he’ll react and possibly waking up at 3am as his blood pressure might drop.

He is a very strong little guy and he has pulled through this before. We are hoping that will continue, since all these chemo drugs take a toll on the cancer but also on the good cells. His positive attitude and great sense of humour continue to keep everyone positive and hopeful.