Side Effects

I can't tell you how sick I felt after reading all the fine print of all the possible side effects of the chemotherapy drugs. The premise is that you inject poison into the blood stream by my son's heart, let it pump around and kill all the rapid dividing cells (including the red blood cells, white blood cells, hair cells, etc.), treat the side effects, and hope that by doing all this it means that we never see another tumor. If you saw the damage that these drugs could do to your baby, you too would think twice before letting the doctors use it.

Thankfully, Jacob has suffered few of the immediate side effects and most of them have been in the common column not the serious but rare column. But his tummy is very tender to the nausea when they give him the "triple combination." The Zofran hasn't been able to mask it completely. They actually start the Zofran (anti-nausea med) before giving the chemo. Then he gets a dose every 6 hours whether he feels well or not. A steroid was added to his meds this time, which I didn't think made a noticable difference this time. Benadryll works with Zofran to enhance the effect. How it works on Jacob is that it basically puts him to sleep, so he doesn't feel the nausea. But even with all these efforts, the medical staff feels like we could find a better balance so he doesn't have to suffer so much. He completely loses his appetite (I couldn't even get him to eat ice cream or his favorite crackers or sugar coated cold cereal).

I talked to Jon this morning. They'll be on their way home today. He was awake and perky at 7:00 a.m. He may still have nausea or vomiting for the next couple of days, but he is too well to be confined to a hospital bed. It just seems that he needs 2 1/2 days to let the worst of it work through his system.

His head still is covered with peach fuzz. It's amazing how many bleached blond hairs he has. The darker hairs seems to come out first. He may still be moving toward a completely shiny bald head. At times his hair has bothered him. I think he felt embarrassed that he looked like "an old man" instead of a cool bald guy.

He is extremely sensitive about his port. He doesn't like anybody to touch him hear his left side. I don't think his needle was positioned the best this time. He was very cautious about his tubes tugging. He would walk around WAY hunched over so the cord wouldn't pull on his chest. He looked like a little old man hobbling down the halls that way. I expect to see him in my front room playing Mario Dance Dance again soon. I probably will also see him lying on my couch with a barf bucket nearby.

Now I know why they make teddy bears, bracelets, & bumper stickers that say, "CANCER SUCKS."