Please let me sleep...

Logan has had a pretty uneventful week, and we made it through without any visits to the clinic which was nice. On the other hand, Logan has been sick all week. Nothing major, but it is hanging on. He had the croupy cough earlier in the week, and it turned into a regular cold with runny nose. The cough is gone, thankfully, but the runny nose shows no sign of slowing down. What is strange, is that when he wakes up in the morning, he is perfectly fine. He is happy, feisty, and ready to go to daycare and see his friends. He even wanted to go out this morning and play in the snow before we left. But, when we get home/as it is getting dark he is a bit whiny and needy. He is not sleeping great (translation: neither am I), and has decided he does not want to sleep alone. We even tried bringing him into our bed one night, but that was disastrous as no one got any sleep. But, of course, now he wants to do that again. It is funny, he keeps making up excuses as to why he should come to our bed. The reason keeps changing. What has me the most worried about this though is that he has labs on Monday to see if he passes his counts to start Maintenance on Tuesday. Hopefully he will get some good rest over the weekend and bounce back. Positive thoughts are needed.

Dear Parent of a Sick Child This is a link to another blog that I saw on Facebook. It was tough to read and took me back to those first few days in the hospital when Logan was diagnosed. We have been so fortunate in that he is responding very well to treatment, has not been readmitted to the hospital, and that his cancer has a very good survival rate. But it also spoke to how I am feeling this week. It has not been a bad week, just a hard week. I am tired. I am tired of him getting sick so easily, I am tired of trying to be/act normal, and I am just physically tired (I think I am coming down with his cold too). Thank goodness for coffee and tea. Maybe I will get some sleep this weekend too.

Deferred

So, we went in on Friday for labs and Logan's numbers are low, but not too low. His ANC is 640 which just means that his immune system is moderately compromised. He can still do daily activities, but we are trying to up the handwashing. One problem with this is that he now throws up if he even smells hand sanitizer. And, a sink is not always as accessible/convenient as often as I would like for him to wash his hands. But we are figuring it out.

We did iron out all the details of scheduling on Friday. We have now changed our clinic days to Mondays for labs and Tuesdays for chemo. This ensures that we have our normal medical assistant doing the finger pokes, regular physician assistant doing Logan's exams and lumbar punctures (spinal chemo), and a familiar nurse to access his port. Hopefully this will work.

We still have more to learn about Maintenance when we go in next week for labs on Monday. As of right now, no clinic visits this week. I say it like that because Logan has had a cough, and is sounding a bit croupy. (Is that a word?) But, I think the worst of that has passed without really getting him down. Just one night of restless sleep for us all. He seems to be on the mend. Here he is with his new hat from the clinic:

Adventures in grocery shopping

Overall Logan is doing great. We had a pretty good extra day to the weekend from the holiday. The only thing we had to do was go to the grocery store because that little chore kept being put off throughout Saturday and Sunday. So, off I go to the store with both kids. It is great that we do not have to be so careful, and I can actually go to the grocery store with Logan. It is the little things that get taken from you during an ordeal like this, that sometimes make you feel paralyzed. Just going to pick up food for your family takes coordination of schedules so one parent can be home while the other goes to the store. But, thankfully, now Logan's numbers are pretty good so he can go out. We still wash hands like crazy and I wipe down all the groceries with a disinfecting wipe when we get home, just to be safe. 

Anyway, off we go...but after we arrived, Logan kept complaining of his stomach hurting. So, we took several trips to the bathroom to no avail. I even put him in the little seat in the cart, which I rarely do, but he was tired. Then, as we were almost finished, and on the last aisle (which, incidentally, is the FARTHEST from the bathroom) he whines. I look down, and he has thrown up all down himself. So, back we go to the bathroom. I do not know how he did it, but somehow it was contained to only on his jacket. I cleaned him up, put his jacket into a plastic produce bag and in my purse. Then he seemed perfectly happy, of course. We picked up the last of our groceries, paid, and he was even feeling good enough to ride the horse at checkout. I still have no idea what made him sick, I guess this is just another random puking incident. But, as you can clearly see, he recovered just fine. I am in awe of his strength and perseverance. Nothing, not even puking on his favorite Spiderman jacket, can hold him back. (On the bright side, Spiderman is now recovered and clean, with no ill effects. It must be due to the radioactive spider venom fortifying him.)

My little man is Amazing!

We have had a great and very fast weekend. Logan (as we predicted, and knew) has done just fine. Just chemo in his port? No problem. He has not needed naps, and has been eating OK though not a lot. After his ordeal on Friday and going out to eat, he slept in until about 9:15 on Saturday. No wonder he did not need a nap! Anyway, he has been playing just fine too. He bounced back from the difficult clinic visit, and has not let it slow him down. Logan has been a little emotionally needy, but not too bad. He stayed pretty close to me on Saturday. And, he also kept asking if we were proud of him for his "Bob poke at the new doctor's office." But this could partially be our fault that we kept saying how proud we were of him on Friday.

So, looking ahead, we go in on Friday for labs, to talk about Maintenance, and also talk about switching up our clinic days so that Logan has the right staff for his appointments. I know that it is a new and improved clinic in the brand new hospital, but we miss our consistent homey office. Here he is enjoying an ice cream bar after dinner tonight:

Worst. Clinic visit. Ever

Well, we went to the new clinic on Wednesday for labs. We changed our finger poke day so that Logan could have the same medical assistant, Melissa, as she no longer works on Thursdays. He was a little skeptical about the new place, but was reassured by all the familiar faces. His regular nurses, the medical assistant, front office staff, and physician assistant all made the transition smooth. The new protocol is that they send down the labs to the hospital's lab, so we do not get instant results. So, later we received a phone call and learned that he passed (just barely) with enough to escalate his dose for the chemo visit today.

That leads us to today. I will not get into my day, all I will say as that it was an annoying waste of time. I had to get up extra early, leave the house before the kids even woke up, and do a few other things that I will not rant about, because this blog is about Logan and his fight. But, in all this, I forgot his EMLA (numbing) cream that I usually put on his port before going to the clinic. I was running late, so did not have time to stop in and get it. So that started everything off wrong. We had the nurse practitioner, who does not see Logan often. She asked us several questions regarding how he did after his last treatment, but then seemed to not believe us. We told her how he has a much harder time after the spinal chemos and it makes him sick, etc. She kept telling us that it was the higher dose of medication in his port and not the spinal. Again, we told her that he always has a hard time after those, and it was definitely the spinal. I still did not get the impression that she believed us. Why would she? It's not like we have been with him every step of the way these last 8 months, and know how he reacts to the various treatments. Then, we did not have our usual nurse. She is usually there on Fridays, but was off today. We had a nurse that Logan rarely sees, and has not accessed his port in a really long time (months). Logan had the usual reaction to the mask (nausea) and vomited in his mask before they even tried to access. Then the different nurse poked him three times in an attempt to access his port, before we said stop at that point. She then went to get another nurse, who is more familiar with Logan and he is more comfortable with who accomplished it in one smooth try. Thank you Shannon. The pharmacy said that Logan had to get the Zofran orally vs IV now, so we did that. He took it no problem, but he had his usual reaction to the saline flushes and threw that up too. All in all, there were four pokes, and he threw up three times. The only good thing about the visit today was that it is his last treatment before maintenance. We made it. He did it. We made it through the toughest part, and all without any hospital readmissions.

After all of that, we asked Logan what he wanted for dinner. Anything he wanted to go get, cook, etc. So we went out for Noodles and then even added on an extra treat of ice cream. Here is a picture of Logan in his PJs after we came home from dinner. As you can see, he has recovered nicely. As I told him so many times this afternoon and evening: he is my superhero, and we are so proud of him.

Getting back to normal

Logan has finally almost recovered after last week's chemo. For several days he really did not eat, and was not feeling great. I also think he was battling a little cold or something because he had a runny nose and watery eyes, so that did not help. Overall now he is doing much better. He is starting to eat a little bit, and getting some of his energy back.

This week, we are getting back to normal. He is going back to daycare which will be good. He has missed his friends, even though he has enjoyed being at home with Nene, Papa, Grandma and Grandpa over these past few months. We are eternally grateful for all the help we have received while Logan has needed isolation to stay healthy. But we are also thankful that he is now healthy enough to do his normal every day activities.

Coming up, Logan has labs on Thursday and chemo (if he passes) on Friday. This will be our first visit to the new clinic in the new satellite Children's hospital. We are very excited to have the hospital so close to us, even though if Logan needed to be admitted he would still have to go up to the main hospital because they have the inpatient oncology floor with all the bells and whistles, staff, etc.

Here is a picture of Logan taking a nap on the couch last week. This is something he never does at home anymore, but he needed it.

Roller coaster day

Logan passed his counts to have chemo today, and his ANC is actually 2000 which is good and also allowed the doctors to escalate his dose of the medicines. He was also due for a dose of chemo in his spinal fluid, so we started out this morning at the clinic (no breakfast or drinks beforehand). I don't know how he does it, but every time Logan has a spinal chemo and is not allowed to eat breakfast he wakes up early and we have to occupy him for longer and keep reminding him why he cannot eat or drink. He is a trooper though, and made it without too much fuss.

We arrived armed with the little DVD player and a couple of movies in hopes that all would go smoothly. He has been having more nausea and trouble when the access his port to put the chemo in, so we are pulling out every trick we can think of. It starts even when the just put the mask on, and gets worse when they disinfect his skin before they insert the needle. It is just all linked in his mind, so any step triggers a reaction. So, anyway, he did wonderful for his tap with no problems and stayed flat for an hour while he received the IV fluids and the two chemos in his port for a total of three different doses. We went home then and he was ready for lunch.

He was a little pitiful through the day, and started to have back pain. He has never had back pain before with these, so I called the clinic just to let them know. They gave us the OK to give him Motrin (this is a big deal for a kid with Leukemia) and to use a heating pad. But, apparently the heating pad is a big scary monster ready to gobble him up, because he would not let it anywhere near him.

He took a nap, and did get sick later in the day. But now he seems to have recovered from that and is feeling better. Hopefully he will stay this way and have a good evening and sleep well tonight. Here is a picture of Logan in front of his new Ironman Fathead, and then in the tub. Notice all that hair growing back!

Sorry for no updates

It has been a wonderfully uneventful week. Logan had labs last Thursday and chemo last Friday (his counts were a little low since he was recovering from the virus, so they did not escalate his dose). Since then he has had no clinic visits, no chemo, no fevers, no cough, no bad news or worries. Yeah! So, sorry about not updating, but we have just been enjoying a normal week. We went over to Logan's best friend Weston's house for a fun New Year's Eve dinner, and then even took the kids bowling today. Overall it has been a fun time, and our break is coming to an end.

Up next for Logan is a clinic appointment on Monday for labs. They will check his counts to see if/how much chemo he gets on Tuesday. If he "passes" then he has a morning appointment for chemo in his port and chemo in his spinal fluid. Those are the ones that are not our favorite, because they seem to hit him harder and make him sick for a couple days after. He is such a trooper though, and handles it really well. Here are some pictures, first from his chemo on Friday (he was still feeling a little sick and wimpy) and then a couple days later enjoying one of his Christmas gifts of roller skates:

We also want to say "Hello!" to our new followers on Logan's Facebook support page. Some unfamiliar names, but also some familiar names from college. Thanks to all for following Logan's journey and our progress through this fight.