Cycle 3 Week 2

We are officially four weeks post-op and if you would have asked me in late December what late January would look like I would have explained a worst-case scenario situation. I was really bracing for the worst, expecting that life would be, and feel, a lot different than it currently does. I anticipated a really difficult post-op healing and recovery with a lot of pain, a nasty scar and a bed ridden kid. Time has a way of putting space between what was and what is. It doesn’t seem possible that we are already a week into February.

He's done an amazing job logging into school every day and catching up on all of his assignments, completely on his own, without any reminders. He's also kept himself busy building LEGOs.

“I’d trade all of my tomorrows for one single yesterday”... Bobby McGee by Janis Joplin is on my "Jams" Spotify playlist and it came on yesterday. This lyric stuck with me. So many days I long to go back, to get a chance to do life with them over. I feel like I probably romanticize a lot of it, remembering the fondness of it all and not the difficult moments. I wonder if I appreciated it when I was in the trenches, or if it's easier to wax nostalgic for days gone by and times long past, now that they are older. I don't know who I want to blame or thank on any given day depending on if I'm currently viewing time as a gift or a theft.

Eli had a decent week last week after treatment only dealing with some mild delayed nausea triggered by some isolated events but still maintaining a good appetite and kept the weight on. We went to clinic last Friday to check counts and he hadn’t dropped too low at that point. Then the weekend was mostly gray and pretty uneventful.

Peep the scar.

This week Eli had a follow up appointment with the surgeon here, who did the original biopsy. Everyone seems really impressed with Eli's healing thus far. His incision looks really good. He has a lot of good muscle strength and range of motion. The plan is to take x-rays in 2 weeks and see what bone growth looks like. He’s been able to shower completely on his own and get up and around. We aren’t using the wheel chair that much. He’s able to get along really well on crutches. The most important worry is to make sure he doesn’t fall. We've had a really dry winter up until this week and have now been dumped on a couple of times. 

He made me text Dr. G to ask if he can drive. He replied that we can revisit in a couple of months. :) 

Waiting to see the ortho surgeon.

We had our clinic appointment a day early so we could see Dr V (his main oncologist) because we haven’t seen her since before surgery. She was also impressed with his progress, healing and lack of pain. It’s actually crazy that he only needed pain meds for 12 days after surgery and only 6 days after we left the hospital considering how much pain he was in for the first 5 days.

We have confirmed that he only needs ONE more Cisplatin treatment in Cycle 4 so on these treatment weeks (week 1) he can go in to clinic and get the doxorubicin infusion on day 1 and 2 and go home so that’s TWO less hospital stays in his schedule.

We go back for inpatient treatment on 2/14 (I’m sorry Riley) and this will be the last of our three-peat stretch. So three more hospital stays this month and then only four left for the next few months.

His counts Friday weren’t as non-existent as last check this same time period, but still low. His hair has grown back so much. He had too many eyebrows to begin with and got to keep those and although some of his pretty lashes fell out, most have grown back. I would imagine that this last dose of the Cisplat will make these strands come loose again, but he's my handsome either way.