Chemo for Halloween

On October 31, 2015 by Michelle Love

Back at Duke Children’s Health Center for another long day of fludarabine and cytoxan infusions and the required 4 hours of post-hydration. Before we left here yesterday, BJ got a 2nd unit of platelets. The first unit had only bumped his count to 13k, so it was still too low. He was very tired last night, but he did eat a little pizza and we watched another episode of ‘Gotham’. It’s a great show. When he was first diagnosed, we would watch back to back episodes of ’24’ (his choice) on Netflix, until we had watched them all. After that, it was ‘Walking Dead’. This summer, he talked me into watching ‘Breaking Bad’ and ‘Prison Break’. Recently, he found ‘Gotham’ for us to watch together, so we’re still in the first season.

This morning, it was hard to get him going, but he struggled through and we got here about 9:30. Teenagers in general are hard to wake up early in the morning…but waking a teenager who has trouble sleeping, has low blood counts which in itself causes fatigue, has leukemia trying to destroy his body, and has just spent 11 hours of the prior day in clinic getting chemo that is destroying his body…it is a real challenge for him. I really wanted to just throw him over my shoulder and carry him to the car.

His first chemo has been started and he is sleeping now. His platelet count is 23, so it’s just over the transfusion threshold. His hemoglobin is 8.4, so he will be getting 2 units of blood after the hydration. It’s going to be another very long day.