December 2019 Chemo

“You are in the good part. It’s just not supposed to suck so much.”

Frank words from my sister this weekend.

Tate’s appointment went well today. His ANC is 1130, which is within range, so his nightly dose of Methotrexate was increased a little bit. When discussing the decreased dose I had been giving him with the Nurse Practitioner, it turns out I was giving more than the amount recorded in his file. Either the Nurse Practitioner wrote our instructions wrong or I followed them wrong; that is still to be determined, but 19 months later I am still astonished how easy it is to make a mistake with Tate’s medications.

Tate is still coughing. It has been two weeks, so he was prescribed some antibiotics to fight any sinus infection or pneumonia that could be brewing. He’ll also start a 5-day steroid pulse tonight.

And…the Nurse Practitioner seemed very surprised that the nurse we talked to about Tate fainting last week would recommend we seek a PCP’s advice before calling the clinic. In fact, she wants Tate to be examined by the Endocrinologist because there are multiple reasons a Leukemia patient might faint.

Ironically, when we got to the clinic this morning, there was a big monitor in the waiting room that listed the symptoms parents should take their kids to the ER for. Fainting was number 5 on the list, making us 9 days late to have him examined by a doctor. Hmph.

Tate tried really hard to get out of the house and move around before this month’s chemotherapy. It fills me with such tenderness to see him determined to enjoy everyday things even though it’s physically very difficult for him and they leave him completely exhausted.

Thanks to an awesome friend, we got to go to Zoo Lights Thursday night! Tate took lots of breaks, and we didn’t walk the whole thing, but we definitely soaked up all the winter magic.

Sunday afternoon Tate joined us for Thai food and and Christmas tree shopping. It was awesome. The server at the restaurant and the guys working the Christmas tree lot at Home Depot didn’t quite seem to know how to interact with Tate. With his cough, he is more comfortable wearing a mask in public, but the public seems not to know what to do with this tall, masked, thin young man walking around with leg braces and a cane like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

We got to see Stephanie and Jared Guess in the Home Depot parking lot that day, too, which was a huge treat. Their teenage son Zac was diagnosed with T-cell Leukemia a few months before Tate was. While our sons’ journeys through treatment have been very different, there are things you experience as parents of a cancer patient that words cannot adequately describe, and connecting with someone going through the same thing is very heartening. It’s okay if words fail because you don’t have to say them.