Life is like a box of blood cells....

...sometimes you get neutrophils. Wait - I should start at the beginning.

The answers to the questions I raised last week...

Hayden's neutrophil count dropped last week because he just ended a steroid run (roids push up the counts). So .55 was...high? OK, then they dropped to .1, but it was not a concern to his doctor.

He has indeed seen kids before with scardy-cat blood cells (bolt at the first sign of chemo). Hayden is very sensitive to methotrexate, which is one of the chemo drugs that we now give him orally at home.

All of us will get the flu shots. We tried today and were turned away at about 5:45 because they had already reached capacity. We'll try again tomorrow (note to anyone who is not high risk but going early for their shots - get the hell out!).

One other question that I raised with Dr. Stoffman but didn't include in last week's post was about his increasingly laboured gait. He figured it was due to prolonged neutropenia...and it looks like he was right because (spoiler alert!) his walking and running is already better.

And now for the good news...Hayden lifted his head above the neutropenia clouds. Too funny, when I heard that his ANC was at 2.15, I panicked that it was too high! When did I get so neurotic? Tom talked me down...turns out normal is 1.5 to 8.5 for kids. But wait, there's more good news...we've restarted Hayden's chemo doses at 50%. We all knew that 100% was too high for him but, because he's part of an oncology study, the doctors have to follow a strict protocol. This protocol states that, when his counts recover, he is re-started at 100%. However, Dr. Stoffman contacted the researchers and we are OK'd to re-start at 50%. You know what this means, hey? Hayden's back on track to having an immune system for his 'wish trip' to the Jedi Training Academy.

Today we went to WalMart and McDonald's (because we can!) and Hayden spent the $$ he received from a special fundraiser party put on by Angie Zubrin and gang. A big thank you to all who participated...he bought a much-desired DSi (hand-held video game contraption...and no, we won't be putting Grand Theft Auto on it!).

I definitely need to post some new pics soon. OMG - Hayden looks great. The prolonged period of low blood counts really didn't get him down too much, but he's even better now. Sooooo happy...all of us.