brycebelt.net Blog

Day 1 and Day 4 of Delayed Intensification

June 30, 2008 on 7:26 pm | In Uncategorized | No Comments

Sorry for the LATE updates… But last weeks appointments went well. Tuesday June 24th was Day 1 of his Delayed Intensification (http://brycebelt.net/delayedintensification.html). Tuesday we had the whole crew except for Blake. TJ and I, Ashley, Brandon, and cousin Kaine. Ashley, Brandon, and Kaine have not been to any of his appointments so they got to see what goes on.
He had Vincristine through his port, Zofram through his port for nausea, Doxorubicin drip through his port over about 30 minutes, and a prescription for his dexamethosone (steroids). We opted for the liquid this time which was a HUGE mistake. He never cries and comes willingly to the kitchen for medicine time. I even had it flavored for him and he HATES it. We will go back to crushing pills for him after this one.

We were told that he would be having a home health nurse coming out this month to give him chemo. He has two weeks in a row where he gets it four days. The first day he will have his port accessed and his chemo given at clinic and then he will be sent home with his port still accessed. The next 3 days the home health nurse will come out and give him his chemo. He will also have an all day chemo which will last 8-10 hours. We were told that he most likely will need blood/platelet transfusion towards the end. He has been lucky thus far not to lose much hair, but most likely he will be losing his hair this round.

When we were done there we went over to OMO for his spinal tap with chemo. It all went well and he had a visit from Michelle (Ashley’s boyfriend’s mom) and Christy (ashley’s boyfriend’s sister). He was happy to see Michelle and really hopped up when he got to see his pretty girl Christy. Michelle was on the 7th floor too with her daughter Nicki, she had just had surgery on her ankles. We stopped by to visit Nicki real quick while daddy went and got him McDonald’s. He seemed a little tired but not too bad after all the chemo on Tuesday.

Blake and I went with Bryce to his appointment on Friday. We went over to clinic and his ANC was 3600. He had been constipated so were given a prescription for a laxative for him to take. Then we were off to OMO for the PEG Asparaginase shots. These are deep tissue muscle shots, one in each leg. We got to OMO around 10:30 and he didn’t receive his shots until 12:30 and he had to wait another hour before he could go home. He did pretty well with these shots. He cried because he didn’t want them and cried for just a minute after. He met a little friend at OMO too. His name was Keeton and he was a cute little 5 year old that also had ALL.

Tuesday July 1st is his next appointment and he will have another dose of Vincristine and the Doxorubicin drip.

We have 50 of his Buddy Bears tagged and ready to go over to clinic JULY 1st!!