Wednesday, September 26, 2007

School's back on! (for the moment)...

Last night we received a call from our home health nurse scheduling Matt's blood draw for today. She said that she had just called Hem/Onc to get the orders for the draw and they had told her that they didn't want Matt going to school until we knew what his counts were. :-( He fell pretty dramatically last time and we surely don't want to risk illness or infection by sending him back if his counts are low! He was so BORED today. It made me worried because what if he feels this good for the entire year but can't go to school??? I guess I imagined that if he was too sick to go to school (with his counts) that he would feel crummy, as well. If he feels good, but his immune system is down, we are in for a long year (oh, yeah, I think we're in for a long year anyhow...) So this afternoon he got his blood draw and everything is looking pretty good. His ANC is high enough to go to school tomorrow. He was so excited when I told him. So, here we go back to our 'normal' life. Last time it was 2 and 3 weeks post chemo that he had such awful numbers, so we'll see if this month follows that pattern.

Love,
-Alli

3 comments:

Lynn said...

Allison,
Check out this new research for brainstem gliomas. Could this work for Matt?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070925095353.htm

Katie said...

I hope he has a good day at school, and that his numbers stay high. I wish I had some fun ideas for Matt to do when he has to stay home...

How are the other boys doing?

alligood said...

Lynn,
I think I found the article. The one about the doctors in Spain with a new chemo study? If that's the one, it's really interesting. I think I'll take it to Matt's oncologist to see what she thinks. However, Matt's main tumor is in his hypothalamus with seeding into his brainstem. His tumor is also considered a 'low grade glioma' (thank goodness!) I think the study was done on children with high grade gliomas whose main tumor had shown up in the brainstem. It still warrants a discussion with oncology, though! Thanks for keeping an eye out for us!

Katie,
My boys are doing really well. Having a sane person here to help care for them is really helpful! I truly don't know what I would be doing without Diana here. She is keeping us together in ways that I'm sure she doesn't even realize. They seem happy and healthy and are really doing very well - all things considered!

-Alli