**Update: I don't want to go without mentioning something incredibly nice Eric's college friends did for us. We could not have had a temporal Christmas without their generosity It was so fun to have gifts under our tree. At this point that part of Christmas was on the back burner so for someone to help us in that way was incredibly kind.
Yesterday (Wednesday) Eric had Day 7 of Radiation. Nothing too new there. Eric seems to be loosing a little bit of hair, more than normal, and it looks a little thin on top but nothing too bad. His forehead is sometimes red and has started to itch a little.
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| Warming up his shoulder |
After radiation we met with a physical therapist. He wanted to know Erics history and why he needed physical therapy. After getting to know Erics needs he put a heating pad on Eric's left shoulder and arm to warm it up and get it ready for mild exercise. He had Eric do the bike for arms. Each day Eric gets a little more motion and movement back in his arm and fingers. Even three days ago Eric couldn't lift his arm very high, but now he can lift it above his head.
Right after PT we waited to meet with Dr. Chandramouli, the oncologist, to talk about Eric's first round of chemo. While we waited they accessed Eric's "port" to draw some blood and get it ready for his final chemo treatment of the first round. We were thinking that they were just going to skip the last treatment, but I guess they can put it off as needed.
As we were waiting in the exam room the door was open and Dr. Difiore walked past then came back in to say hi. He was one of the doctors that did "rounds" while Eric was in the hospital. Dr. Difiore was so nice. He remembered our names and was so glad to see us doing better.
Dr. Chandramouli came in a short time later and expressed how glad he was that he admitted Eric to the hospital for the first round of chemo. Obviously we are too, but wished that it wasn't as crazy as it turned out to be. Dr. Chandramouli was also glad that Eric is doing better and was able to be home for Christmas. The only thing we asked was what we could do to help Eric sleep at night. Eric is still only sleeping a couple hours at a time-- he is still on "hospital schedule." Dr. Chandramouli told us a few different things to try and if those didn't work he can prescribe something stronger. We didn't really have any other questions for him other than when would we start the next round. The next round of chemo will be after finishing radiation treatments (ends Jan 3rd), so the next round of chemotherapy will start Jan 7th.
Eric finally received the last dose of chemotherapy today and is now officially done with the first round of chemo. :) It didn't take too long. This drug only takes 10 minutes to administer. It is the prep and clean up work that takes the most time. It was interesting sitting next in a room full of other people hooked up to I.V.'s receiving chemo treatments. I wondered what cancer everyone else had. A dad of one of the girls being treated handed out suckers. That was nice of him.
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| Taking a quick nap while receiving chemo. He was excited to get a "warm" blanket! |
After we got home Eric wasn't feeling too well. He had the chills and soon had a fever. The doctors have told us that if the temp reached 100.4 to call them and that he would be put on an antibiotic because. They want to make sure to fight infections fast. When I checked Eric's temperature it was 101.1 so I got on the phone with the on-call doctor and got Eric an antibiotic. Hopefully that antibiotic gets the job done and Eric doesn't get sick.
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