Slow But Steady

Hello everyone!

We hope that you are having a good week. Well, for us it has been a slow but steady week in terms of AA's progress. He is starting to feel the wear down effects of the chemo and has been really tired, weak, sensitive and cranky. Simple things like too many lights on, or too much noise seems to irritate him more these days and he even gets bothered if I (his Dada) eat near him (many chemo patients are bothered by smells such as perfume/cologne, food smells, etc).  He may be starting to get Mucositis (internal sores in the mouth, throat and intestines caused by chemo) again because his food and liquid intake has gone down. His appetite has not decreased entirely, but instead of eating three times like he was last week, he is now eating 1-1.5 meals a day. I will take that over no meals. The amount of gray hairs I grew last month from the stress of him not eating is ridiculous, and let's face it, they probably don't look as good on me as they do on George Clooney. 

His crankiness could also be related to his lack of naps. Since we've been home for the last couple of days he has not been taking his normal 2-3 hour naps that he has taken his whole life. He seems to be having problems sleeping for long periods this week and woke up often during his night sleep on our first day home from Sloan. Good news is that today he had his first hour and a half nap since being back and last night slept much better throughout the night. Hopefully he just needs to get used to home again.  Hopefully that's it.

Some more good news is the fact that today he had two normal bowel movements (sorry to be vulgar, but he did number 2). This is huge because for almost a month he had diarrhea and in some cases up to 7-8 times a day. This helps us in knowing that 1) he is eating better and 2) the intestinal bacterial virus he caught in the hospital is probably completely gone and his system is back to normal. Tomorrow we head back to the hospital to check his blood levels and see how well his defenses are, and to get some fluids as he will be getting a chemo called Vincristine tomorrow. Its a treatment that we should be back home from in the evening, being that he does pretty well against this chemo. Glad that I was able to share some news with you all and will continue to keep you updated as the week goes on. We pray for you all in gratitude of the wonderful prayers you send our way. Please continue to pray for all the sick, it's amazing how prayer, faith, and belief can make a difference. We love you all.
Roi :-)