May 9, 2011

I had a very nice Mother's Day yesterday, spent with family and friends. It was a joyful day, such a welcome change compared to Mother's Day last year, when I didn't even know if Collin was going to survive. It really is amazing to think about how far we've come in a year.

Today was another busy day, but it was a good day. Collin had speech and occupational therapy this morning. He worked hard in both therapy sessions, and I expected him to be asleep before we left the parking lot. But he stayed awake as we drove over to the other end of the hospital campus. We had lunch, ran into Caiden and his family (he's doing well, he looks great, and his hair is starting to grow back), visited our nurses on 7W and met another friend (a wonderful mom of another tough fighter), and then headed back down to the clinic for Collin's next appointment. Collin's weight was 14k (30.8lbs) which is the highest it's ever been. He's definitely been eating well! Today's visit was just to check his bloodwork, so once the nurse drew blood, we were able to leave. It wasn't until the ride home the Collin finally conked out and napped for about an hour.

Later this afternoon, a nurse from the clinic called me with the CBC part of Collin's lab results. His white blood cell count was a little lower than it's been recently, as was his ANC. His ANC was still above 1000 though, so he still has a bit of an immune system. Then early this evening, his oncologist called to say that his kidney functions had come back, and his creatinine was high. This indicates his kidneys are not filtering his blood the way they should be. Collin just finished his second round of Accutane this morning, and his oncologist said she has seen Accutane affect renal function. So, she is having me hold the chemo drug Etoposide for this week to give his kidneys a break, and will have his bloodwork re-tested in one week, instead of the usual two weeks.