ECG and fuzzy

We’ve had a scheduled hospital stay of 4 days 2 weeks ago and Ben reacted very well to the treatment. He did not show too many signs of nausea and his spirits were up despite the nurses waking him up to take a urine sample every two hours each night. It wasn’t fun for me either since I slept on a lumpy cot and also woke up every two hours. At least they didn’t ask me for a urine sample.

During that 4 days he received a 5 litre bag of methotrexate, a yellow liquid chemo drug. Five litres of this stuff had to pass through his veins within the space of 24 hours. This would bring his blood counts down to an extremely low level. He is then “rescued” by a drug called Leucovorin given 24 hours later, which help bring his counts back up.

As you can see from the photo above, Ben had to have an echocardiogram done to check his heart. One of the drugs that he receives called Doxorubicin, has adverse effects on the heart after prolonged use. He needs to have an echocardiogram every 8 weeks to make sure his heart is strong enough to take the next dose. He’s taking this rather well for having to take all these medicines now for over 4 years.

You may have noticed that he is getting some hair back. He is most happy about that though he still wears a baseball cap at school. It’s rather cute... he feels like a fuzzy peach. Since he is still receiving chemo, his hair is very slow at growing but it’s getting there.

Since the beginning, Ben ha been getting Vincristine, a drug used in many types of cancer. this has an effect on tendons especially, in Ben’s case, the Achilles tendon. Because it tightens up, it hurts him to walk with his heal down, so he walks often on his toes. Though we’ve been doing regular exercises for his feet, a physiotherapist checked him out and has decided that he needs braces. These braces will keep his muscles and tendons stretched so he can walk (and run) with more ease. Luckily, he will only have to wear these braces at night while he sleeps, though that may not be too comfortable. We’re hoping that it won’t be long for him to feel comfortable to run around the playground at school. He has mentioned that he can’t play with his friends sometimes because he can’t keep up.