The Latest on Blake

Tuesday, January 6th 2009

Today was our first day home. Blake slept most of the day with the exception of about 1 hour intervals during which he ate and did not play or move around much. He has not complained of any pain, but the hospital stay sure took a lot out of him.

Wednesday, January 7th 2009

We got to the hospital for Blake's bone marrow biopsy at 7:30 am. The nurses had to access his port in order to draw blood to make sure he had enough blood and platelets to make it through the procedure. He was actually very good about them putting the needle in the port and barely made a fuss at all.

They put him under, which took two doses of the anesthesia since he is such a strong boy. The bone marrow biopsy and the dose of chemo only took half and hour to do. It took Blake about an hour to wake up completely, once he woke up we headed upstairs to the clinic to have some blood work done and to have a few more chemo treatments. He was very good there as well, but put up a little bit of a fight when they took the needle out of his port. He really doesn't like the feeling when the rip the tape off of his sensitive skin. We find out on Friday what the results of the bone marrow biopsy are.

Thursday, January 8th 2009

Today was a bit better for Blake. He ate quite a bit and only threw up a tiny bit once. He is a little fussy, which we expect as a side effect of the steroid that he has to keep taking until next Tuesday. He is still in pretty good spirits and continues to amaze me at how strong and understanding he is during this whole process. It is so wonderful to have a 2-year-old who understands logic.

Friday, January 9th 2009

We went to the clinic to have Blake's blood work done. His white blood cell count is very low, which was expected as the chemo treatment takes a lot out of him. The white blood cell count being low means that Blake will catch anything he comes in contact with because his immune system is non-existent at the moment. His sodium level was also low, so we have to feed him salty foods. We are scheduled to go back in to the clinic on Monday to check his sodium levels.

The great news is that the treatment is working more rapidly than we expected. Blake's bone marrow saturation level was at 100% on Tuesday December 30th and as of Wednesday January 7th it has dropped to a 2%. This is amazing as the doctors did not expect it to get that low that quickly. The prayers are working, please continue to pray!!!!!!

It has broken my heart to have to leave Blake the last 2 days for a few hours in order to attend my classes at ITT. I think it's good for Blake to have a little bit of normalcy in his life right now and he is used to mommy going to class. Still, it is very hard for me to leave him, even for a moment, as I feel my place is by his side, making him feel as comfortable as I can through this rough time.

Thank you again for all your kind words and prayers, they mean the world to us!

The Parracks