Cycle 2

Well we came back to Texas on Wednesday and that was a long ride! LOL We had a decent ride down, but encountering a stupid drunk chick at the hotel. UGH!

Anyway, we had appts on Thursday, 9:30am for Fast Trax lab, 9:45am for Chest X-ray (they HAD to have this before they could order Chemo for cycle 2), and then drs appt at 11:40.

Well we were advised to come early and we could get it all out of the way. So we came at 7:50, gave the blood, got the x-ray done, and left on the 9:30 shuttle! LOL We got back to the hotel and waited until we heard from the nurse, and came back around 11:50ish to meet with the dr. They said the results came back fast from the X-ray!

So the dr said everything looked good. James had a bit of swelling in his legs, and the dr said that it wasn't anything to worry about. He had a bit of a cough/drainage and the dr wasn't concerned as she thought he was almost over everything. His counts all looked good still, so that is good!

She did finally have the results back from the bone marrow aspirate from last Thursday. It still showed a touch (0.65% of total marrow) of leukmeia blasts. Obviously that is great it's so low, but not if we don't want it to come back. She said that we will test his aspirate again after this cycle is done. She said it doesn't surprise her because of the length of time he's had the disease.

She said that if there is still Leukemia cells hanging out after this cycle it's normally a predictor that the Leukemia will come back. So she reccomends a bone marrow transplant to give his body the extra UMPh to kick it for good! Prayers/Healing vibes that this happens! We would LOVE to not need a transplant at all since he is doing good so far!

He was supposed to get admitted THursday for the cycle to start. Wouldn't you know the hospital was full AGAIN! UGh! Finally he called Friday Night (they were supposed to call when a bed opened up) to see where he was on the list. They had JUST cleaned it! So we came up here on the 9:30 shuttle to stay. We are on the same floor again, and have had GREAT nurses! Thank goodness!

They started the fluids at 23:50 and then had to get his urine ph to 7.3, which was done by 2ish so at 4:30 they were able to start the Methotraxate. The first does was for 2 hours, then another that ran for 22. As of this am he is still on track of getting the mex through his system (they measure it in his blood, too much is horrid on kidneys and if that happens it delays everything else!). He is having good in/output and drinking tons of fluids to keep it flushed out!

His counts still look great! Yesterday morning his counts were: WBC- 3.0, Hemoglobbin-9.7, and Platelets 308. Today they were WBC-3.9, Hemoglobbin- 9.6, and Platelets 292. Hopefully his counts stay decent and that he doesn't get sick after this cycle!

So that is the update. We won't be home on the 1st like we had hoped, so HOPEFULLY on Thursday we will be able to leave after the dr appt! :-)