Tuesday, October 5, Day (-8)

Collin was admitted to the hospital yesterday afternoon for the high dose chemo and stem cell transplant round. I spent most of last Friday, Saturday, and Sunday working to get everything ready for the hospital. Collin and I live out of a suitcase so that we're prepared to go back to the hospital in an emergency, and I keep two bins of toys packed in the living room along with other hospital necessities like a highchair, etc. Even though the clothes in the suitcases were clean, I had to re-wash everything and then seal the clothes in plastic bags, and then clean the suitcases before I put the bags of clothes back into them. I also had to unpack the bins of toys and books, and wipe down the bins and all the contents with Clorox wipes, and seal the toys in the bins until we got to the hospital. Then once we got to the room, the outside of everything had to be wiped down before it could come into the room. The goal is to have everything as clean as possible since Collin's immune system will be so compromised after the chemo and stem cell rescue. The hospital preparation was exhausting, and on top of that I was trying to do some housecleaning and laundry so that I wasn't leaving the house a mess. Of course there is a lot more to do before Collin is discharged back home, but I am thankful that with the help of family and friends, everything will get done.

When I got Collin out of the car and into his stroller once we got to the hospital yesterday, the poor kid started shaking his head and saying, "no, no, no." He was definitely not pleased to be back, and had some major temper tantrums last night. He's been through so much and it's completely understandable that he would be upset, and I tried telling myself to be thankful that he has the ability to throw a tantrum. But the frustrating thing was that his first tantrum, which was because I cut up his hot dog and he wanted to pick it up and eat it whole, lasted a whole hour. I couldn't get him to calm down so I could safely feed him and not risk him choking, so he ended up missing dinner because his tray can't stay in the room longer than an hour because they don't want to chance bacteria growing on the food and making him sick. Later when he calmed down I got him something else to eat, but then something sent him into another tantrum, and he threw the food on the floor. He had to be hungry last night when he went to bed, but it's hard to reason with an almost-two-year-old.

Yesterday Collin was started on IV fluids, and then was given the IVIg. It was infused slowly so that he didn't have the scary reaction he had the first time he received the drug in June. Luckily everything went smoothly and he had no negative reactions. Today, he had his first infusion of Carboplatin, which ran over four hours. He tolerated it with no problems. Everything today went very smoothly; Collin was in a good mood, had great therapy sessions, ate well and took his medicine orally with no problems (his feeding tube came out in his sleep Saturday night, and as long as he ate well and took his medicine, we didn't have to replace it right away because he wouldn't be receiving tube feeds during the chemo. It will have to be replaced probably early next week before the mucositis starts so that it's not too painful to put back in). I hope tomorrow goes just as smoothly as today did!