Moving on Down the Road

The doctor will see you now.

Well, folks, we have officially begun Phase 2 of our chemo journey.  We are in Consolidation -- hooray!  If you remember, we needed Fionn's ANC count to be at least 750 in order to have the port surgery and begin the next phase of treatment.  Fionn's counts on Monday were fabulous.  1330, to be exact.  Way to be an overachiever, Fionn!  So, as you know, we had the port surgery on Monday.  And then yesterday Fionn started his second phase of chemo.

So here's what our next 2 months will basically entail.  We go to clinic every Monday morning for a lumbar puncture (spinal tap) and an infusion of chemo meds into Fionn's spine.  Then, assuming his counts are acceptable, we will have a bag of chemo meds (methotrexate for those of you nerds who want to keep up) injected into Fionn's port while we are at the hospital.  This is preceded by and followed up with a LOT of fluids which are also injected into Fionn's port to make sure he is keeping hydrated.  Then the following three days, we are visited by a home care nurse who administers a quick "push" of more chemo meds (Cytarabine) into Fionn's port.  They also do vitals and all that good stuff.

Just in case you thought that Conor and I were getting away scotch free from the whole medication thing, I'll have you know that we are also administering oral chemo to Fionn every night right before bed.  The med is mercaptopurine -- or "6-MP" as our doctor (and now my smarty pants husband) calls it.  It has to be crushed and mixed with some cherry syrup.  Fionn hates it, of course.  Apparently, they have a new liquid version of this med, but our oncologist prefers to kick it "old school."  Don't get me wrong, I'm usually all for living in the past, but we might have to talk to her about this one.

So that, my friends, is basically the next 8 weeks of Fionny's life.  And our life.  It's a lot of medicine, to be sure, but hopefully Fionny will continue to feel okay.  So far, so good.  No nausea, no other side effects.  They do say that the effects can be cumulative, so we will have to hold our breath until mid-August to know for sure.

Part of the reason I wanted to write tonight, aside from sharing the basics of Fionny's treatment going forward, is that I wanted to share a picture of our spunky son who has been totally himself all day yesterday and today.

There are 4 gifts pictured here: cup, space shuttle, shirt, hat.  Thank you Ms. Brenda, Wheeler family, Dahlstroms, and Jim and JuJu, respectively!

I received several emails and texts from people expressing their concern for Fionny (and us!) following my last blog post.  I'm so sorry if it gave everyone a big heartache and a touch of PTSD.  It was definitely a hard day for everyone, but I wanted to assure you all that Fionn is doing great now.  He loves telling people, "I got a port, and I didn't even cry!" The second part is, of course, a bold-faced lie, but we're just going with it.  If he can't remember screaming bloody murder on the hospital gurney on the way to surgery, then who are we to remind him?  Am I right?

In other news...despite our blatant disregard for all things green in our backyard, we have TONS of cucumbers starting to make themselves known.  Here is our first pick of the season.

 

Wow.  Not sure what is most impressive -- the cucumber or the truly terrible state of my hair these days.  Hasn't seen a blow dryer in awhile, can you tell?  Sheesh!

One more thing before I sign off.  Do you notice the chalkboard wall behind me?  It's been updated, can you tell?  No?  Well, here's a better pic.

That's adorable Lilly Thornblad standing to the right of the chalkboard wall.  Her mommy, Corey, did this for us.  You might remember that we were in the habit of changing our chalkboard wall every few months to reflect things that we were anticipating for the coming season.  Yeah, well, as you might imagine, our Summer has been a bit different than we originally expected.  Besides the sheer lack of time we have had to update the wall, I honestly just wasn't feeling inspired.  What could I write up there?  Chemo, chemo and...oh!  More chemo!  Whoopee!

Enter Corey.  My amazing friend.  My sister.  This incredible woman listened so closely to everything I said we were hoping to do for the remainder of the Summer and then somehow, in the midst of watching my Deaglan and her own two kids, made this wonderful wall for us.  We arrived home to this colorful, thoughtful surprise.  And just like that...our family felt inspired again.  Even a little bit normal.  Thank you, Corey.  And thank you to all the friends and family who help us feel inspired and loved and cared for each and every day.  We love you all!!