Tuesday, May 25

Chemo Round 1, Day 11

There were a few quiet hours of sleep last night. Collin fussed around four this morning, so I changed him; then he threw up some more so I held his hand and suctioned his mouth every time he vomited, as is my usual practice. Then I cleaned him up and put clean pads underneath him. I sat and held his hand until he went back to sleep, and then I went back to sleep too. When I woke up at seven, Collin's nurse told me that his platelet count was pretty low, so he would be receiving platelets; the doctor said that with Collin they don't want to risk any bleeding in his head, so they didn't want to wait until his platelet count went any lower. Luckily he had no reactions to the transfusion. His hemoglobin count was down again too, so he would need another transfusion of red blood cells either today or tomorrow. As the day went on and Collin seemed more tired, the decision was made to do the transfusion today, so he is receiving it as I type this blog entry. There was more vomiting today, and the frequency seemed to increase a little, so the tube feed increase was paused to make sure that the increased volume of feed isn't contributing to the vomiting. This afternoon Collin had another fever, so the Vancomycin was restarted. Yesterday the sterile dressing over his Broviac port was changed because it looked pretty bad due to the vomiting. Today it had to be changed again because it had again been...dirtied, only this time it looked like there was some moisture under it. Normally the dressing is only changed once a week, because every time it is opened, there is a risk for infection. Now I'm trying to keep a disposable pad over Collin's chest to try to better protect the dressing; the strategy works as long as Collin will leave the pad on his chest.

Collin's physical therapist brought him some Fisher Price Little People dinosaurs to play with today. He enjoyed holding them and looking at them for a little while. She had asked to see our stroller, so I had Bill email pictures of the large stroller and the umbrella stroller we have. Both strollers lack the support Collin needs since he is unable to sit up on his own, so we looked at some different strollers and ordered one that looks like it will offer more of the support he needs. Collin's occupational therapist got him to clap his hands once today, and Collin waved to Bill and gave him a high-five tonight before Bill left to go home. A few times today I saw a very subtle change in Collin's face that made me think he was trying to smile, and once or twice he opened his mouth and tried to say something.