Second Chemo Week

We were off to our appointment before the girls woke up.  Thank you so much Mikey for watching the girls and helping around my messy home.  Thank you to the Lomu family for the wonderful meal!  We have been truly blessed!

Steven's attitude was great, despite not wanting to be there.  During his appointment they were asking about his side effects.  The one that has been the hardest to deal with is ringing in his ears, which is caused by the cisplaitin.  They decided not to decrease the dose this week, but to inject it slower to see if that helps.  So a bag of cisplaitin that took 1 hour, now takes 2 hours and 20 minutes.  It does lengthen his stay to six hours a day, but if that side effect can be avoided it will be good. 

Thank you so much Paul, Barbie, Joshua and Mariah for the IPOD, it was wonderful to keep focused on postive messages!  Can you tell he enjoyed it?  He didn't even realized that I took this picture!  As you can see by the picture, we had to shave his head Sunday night.  It was coming out and it was hurting his head when he slept.  I don't think I have ever been that nervous shaving as I was last night.

During his nap, I asked the nurse for his flow sheet which has all his information on it.  His alpha fetoprotein levels dropped a lot.  Praise God, prayer is powerful!!!  At the start of his first chemo week it was 775 (no, it wasn't a typo), which the normal range is 0-15.  Today, it was 91.  That is lower than after his tumor was removed!!  That means that the chemo is helping fight the cancer.

Taliah's haircut!

I cut Taliah's hair a lot shorter than I meant, but I think it will stop her from eating her hair.  At least she is still cute.  Thankfully she like the headbands that I have been putting in her hair, since I can't put in barrettes.

Pray that his attitude stays great this week!  Pray that he wouldn't have many side effects or none and no long term side effects.  I asked about the memory loss, and by the percentages that they show it is very low.  Also keep the girls in prayer.  No naps for these girls is not good.  Elyssa (7) has the hardest time with no naps and has been acting up a lot.  Out of the three girls, this has been the hardest on her.

We were able to see Linda and her husband Gary.  Linda, who I talked about in the blog titled "1st Chemo Week - Day 1" was there.  She stopped to introduce us to her daughter, as her friends.  She wasn't able to do a treatment today, because her white blood count was to low.  She did come talk with us, even though she is loosing her voice due to the radiation treatments.  If her count doesn't get better, they are thinking of doing a blood transfusion.  Continue to keep her in prayer!