Days 2 and 3 of Antibody

Wow, cancer sucks. Like, really, really sucks. I hate that Andrew has it and I hate everything that he has to go through to fight it. So if you haven't guessed by now, yesterday didn't go very well. We knew to anticipate the blood pressure drop--so when it did, we were prepared to deal with it. After about one hour, he stabilized and we were on our way again with the antibody infusion. Then the pain set in. And it was not pretty. He was crying in pain for a while until we were able to up the dose of the pain medicine enough to get him more comfortable (though still whimpering). It was awful. It breaks my heart to see him in that much pain. On the bright side (if there is one), the pain solved the low blood pressure issue. His blood pressure readings were beautiful after that. But his heart rate was pretty elevated and his oxygen saturation levels dropped for a while. After a little bit, though, he was drifting comfortably in sleep chasing the dragon. Too comfortably.... He slept the afternoon and evening away, which meant that when he woke up at about 8pm, he stayed up ALL NIGHT! That part wasn't so much fun. So I had lots of coffee today. Lots and lots of coffee today.

Day 3 started off more promising. He woke up playful and in a good mood. A father of another child who received this treatment, describes it like being in the movie Groundhog Day: We wake up and do this all over again until we get it right and Andrew, courtesy of oodles and oodles of narcotics, is unable to recall the day prior. So this morning, since we knew more from the day before, we started on time and were able to tackle his issues as they came much better. Grandma also visited today (with presents of course, she is not capable of coming without toys, this must be part of grandma DNA), so Andrew was very excited to see her and his new Blue Angel (because he doesn't have about 10 of them at home already). But this one was "shinier" than the other ones, so it was different. He knows that we think grandma gives him too many toys, so he tries to justify why he should get more.

As for the antibody infusion, his blood pressure dropped again, but we handled it quickly. The pain started to come again, although he said it wasn't as bad as yesterday. But, operating under the theory that it may get worse, we jumped on it fast and he was able to sleep through it (this time at 3pm in the afternoon as opposed to 5pm yesterday). And mommy got to fall asleep and take a nap as well. The infusion just finished so we have begun to wean him off of the pain medicine. Hopefully he'll shake the grogginess off a little bit more and have some dinner soon. Daddy and Lucia are coming to visit tonight so we are excited about that.

Tomorrow is the last day in this round so we are looking forward to being done and going home on Friday. We are a little nervous, as we will get a new nurse tonight and tomorrow. We seem to have a nice little system down finally and don't want to rock the boat, but are hopeful that things will go all right tomorrow.

Cynthia