Another long Wednesday at BC Children's Hospital. As I write this, Alex is getting his second of two bags of a blood transfusion.
Alex had a pretty good Sunday, didn't do much of course, but a good relaxing day. Cynthia and I went out for a quick dinner and Miles hung with the kids and they all ate a pile of delivered Chinese food. We got back home early and the kids both went to bed early. I sat up by the fire and was in a pretty reflective mood. There was a big party across the street that night. If you were there, you should have come in to say hello!
Monday was our friend Rob's 50th birthday and we are all keen to head to their house for the party. Alex went to bed about three in the afternoon to have a nap in preparation. But stayed there the rest of the day and couldn't get up for it. And stayed there all day yesterday, until this morning, During that time he didn't eat, didn't drink and just felt all around lousy.
We were up early this morning to head down here. The first thing they do here is take a blood sample and Alex's haemoglobin was down to 66. That's maybe 50% of the low end of normal and explains why he was so wiped out. Nothing particularly alarming about this, the chemo knocks your haemoglobin down and at this stage most patients need some blood. Kind of a drag though.
Alex had a lumbar puncture again this morning for a shot of methotrexate and then, what a lot of kids here dread, "The Peg". The Peg is a double shot of a drug called asparaginese. They have two nurses administer a large needle into the thigh muscle of each leg at the same time. (I didn't ask but I assume they do it this way because if you had them one at a time, you might not let them do the second one!) But the dude took it in stride.
After receiving asparaginese one has to wait three hours to see if there is any adverse reaction. And then one can start the blood transfusion. Which takes another three hours.
But after an hour of blood, Alex looked so much better and is more like himself again,ate some hot chicken wings - it's great. His temperature is up a bit, so we're watching that.
