Back to school...after a roller coaster weekend

It's been a crazy weekend starting with an unscheduled trip to the clinic on Friday afternoon. Hayden got a fever and because we expected that his white blood cells would be very low this weekend, we had to take him in. We knew that high temperatures are a common side-effect of one of the chemo drugs so we weren't too worried about another infection. Thankfully, his blood counts weren't that low yet so the doctor OK'd Tylenol - which helped the fever, headaches, and nausea. We expected that the side-effects should run its course by Sunday so when he still had a fever on Sunday morning, we called the doctor and took him to emergency. They ran more tests and, once again, prescribed Tylenol. That, along with the anti-nausea medicine, keeps him pretty happy. Otherwise, he suffers with hangover-like symptoms. We need to keep a close watch, but nothing too worrisome yet.

We have an appointment at Ecole St. Germain tomorrow at 2:15. Nurse Kathy Bourne (super oncology nurse) will talk to the class about cancer and chemo. She has a puppet to demonstrate to his grade 2 class how the port works (a demo that H can participate in, if he wants to) and its hair falls out to show that it's a normal side-effect. Afterwards, we'll meet with the teaching staff to talk about Hayden's return to school. He's a little nervous about going back but it will be good to have some normal routine (as much as possible). He had a couple of school buddies over last weekend and that went really well. And, of course, cousin Chandler will be there to help him out (same grade, different class).

So a busy weekend and likely a busy week ahead. Some of the drugs from his first phase of chemo will be re-introduced into the mix.....damn, hate that vincristine but at least we're not back on the steroids yet. More to come...