3/23/2013 update and BJ is still BJ :)

On March 23, 2013 by Michelle Love

BJ has felt pretty good the past 2 weeks. He had a break from chemotherapy and his counts came back up, which was great!

He began the next phase of treatment yesterday, called Delayed Intensification. This phase will last about 2 months. We went to the clinic, and his blood counts (although much lower than last week) were high enough for him to start the phase. He was taken over to the hospital for anesthesia, where he received a spinal tap and intrathecal methotrexate. After he was brought into recovery, a nurse from the clinic came in and administered the 2 additional chemo drugs into his IV line. He hates having spinal taps. They usually leave him with a bad headache and just generally doesn’t feel well. BJ was very nauseated, and even though he’d taken his nausea medicine, it was still bothering him. We’ve found that ginger ‘candy’, called “Gin Gins” help him feel better.

BJ loves to pick on the nurses. When we have overnights at the hospital, he usually calls the night nurse the ‘vampire nurse’, since she’s in and out all night drawing blood for labs. While BJ was laying in recovery from the spinal tap, he woke up, but didn’t let me or the nurse giving him chemo know. She was bent over him looking at his arm band, and he jumped, and said “arrhhhh”. She jumped backward about 4 feet. 🙂

He’s still feeling weak today. Unfortunately, this is just the beginning of another rough treatment phase. We were told to expect that his counts will bottom out, and that he will need blood transfusions. One day at a time, though….Thank you so much for your continued prayers!