Interim Maintenance 1 - Day 21

On Monday we went for JP's 3rd treatment in Phase 3. Sunday evening we had some blood drawn to see if he was going to make counts and his ANC (ability to fight infection) was low. Remember that a normal ANC is around 5.0 and JP's highest since diagnosis has been 3.2. He was on steroids at the time, which sort of skews the actual number. Anyway, on Day 1 of this phase he was a 1.1 and last Sunday he was a 0.75. Since they increase the dosage of chemotherapy based upon his ability to tolerate it, they needed to know for sure where his level was because if it was actually at 0.75 or higher they would be able to increase, if it was lower they would not increase it but give the same dosage as on Day 11. Turns out he dropped to a 0.5 from Sunday to Monday, so the dosage did not increase. That's fine, the doctor said he is responding the way they anticipate he will. They expect his ANC to drop just like it has been. The scary thing is that he was a 0.6 when we were first admitted to Primary Children's and ultimately fell to a 0.1. With an ANC at a 0.5 we have to be very careful with who he comes in contact with and be even more diligent about hand washing and sanitizing. We've basically quarantined him, haha! We did ask the doctor about taking him to see some friends or going up to Thomas The Train at Heber Valley (Primary Children's had given us tickets and it was the next day) or if we should steer clear of contact with the outside world. She told us that as long as it's just a few people and nobody's sick it would be fine, but larger groups of people and activities that are not outdoors should probably be avoided. Needless to say, we did not go see Thomas the Train and we have not taken JP very many places this week.

Here are pictures from this week - it took an especially long time for the lab to get our doc the results and once the results were finally in and she made the decision not to increase the dosage, she had to order the chemo to be made and the pharmacy then took its sweet time. So we hung out for quite a while in the infusion area where JP couldn't decide if he wanted to watch a show, play the iPad, eat lunch or popsicles. 

After the doctor's, we made some delicious chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting and had dinner with our friend's Cortney and Chris. Their two little boys are JP's little buddies and JP thought it was hilarious to spray them with water. For the record, their own father suggested the idea to JP and then helped him carry out the mission. Silly boys.