In a previous post I had written about E coming down with a fever, and having to stay in the hospital for 2 nights. Stumble #1. A couple of days after that incident, we wound up in emerg in the wee hours of the morning because we were concerned about him having an intussusception. That was stumble #2. This is the story of stumble #3.
We were told at the beginning that there would be some stumbles along the way. Bloodwork would reveal counts that weren't quite right, and treatment would have to be delayed until levels balanced themselves out.
On Tuesday, we were sent in to check E's blood at our satellite hospital, Scarborough Centenary. It was a quick trip: park, blood drawn, leave. They called us later to say that E's results had come back and everything was fine. We could proceed to SickKids on Wednesday for our scheduled appointment, and the beginning of the Interim Maintenance 1 phase. SickKids will send you to your satellite hospital the day before beginning a new phase of treatment to save you a trip all the way downtown if bloodwork shows that one of the markers they watch is not at the correct level.
On Wednesday, we packed up for the drive to SickKids. 1 hour and 50 minutes after pulling out of our driveway, we were in the SickKids parking garage. We made our way up to the 8th floor and had more blood drawn. After blood, we had a brief sit in the waiting room of the Sears Cancer Clinic before we were called in to see our nurse and oncologist. Our nurse measured E's height and weight, and our oncologist talked to us about the Interim Maintenance 1 phase, examined E, and asked us if there were any concerns. Once that was done, we had another sit in the waiting room until we were called to have a dose of chemotherapy administered to our son. Instead of being called to the treatment room, we were called back to reception. Here, our oncologist told us that one of the markers they measure in E's blood (neutrophils) was fine yesterday, but by today had dropped to a level where it is not recommended to start him in the next phase. They suspect that he may have picked up a cold or some other virus.
I completely understand. I want E to be fully ready to start a phase of treatment. I don't want him to start anything if his counts are too low. But I do want things to progress. I want to know that E will be okay. I want our lives to return to some semblance of normalcy. I want to worry about regular parental worries rather than the results of his bloodwork, or how well his leukemia is responding to the chemotherapy. I want.... I suppose that I just feel frustrated. Frustrated that we wasted not one, but two trips to 2 separate hospitals only to be postponed. It's not anyone's fault, it's just one of those stumbles they told us about back at the beginning. E has a few days for his immune system to rev up, and we're going to try again next week to see if he's ready for Interim Maintenance 1. What else can you do but try and move forward?
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