Tag: normal
Am I #smarterthana4yearold ?
Over the last couple weeks, Eli has done two chemotherapy infusions and five high dose radiation treatments. Now he's off pain killers and visible tumors are shrinking. His leg is still swollen more than "normal" (his new normal involves chronic leg and foot edema due to damage from past radiation treatments). This neck tumor was …
The Plan
When life hands you bacon, make bacon bandaids. "Life before death" Eli was discharged from the hospital Friday with normal breathing. The breathing treatment in the Emergency department had gotten things back to "normal", whatever that really is for him. "Strength before weakness" While Eli wanted surgery, that was never a good option. He has …
Eli M.D.
With Eli's continued pain and not so mysterious neck lump, came more visits to the doctor than I like. Eli's eagerness to go meet with doctors, get tests done, and take pain meds was evidence of the discomfort being caused by whatever is inside his body. Monday, we met with the radiation oncologist, since he …
The Risks of Gravity Offset Devices
When things are going well, it's easy to pretend that it will stay that way indefinitely. Life starts to feel more normal. For example, Eli begged me to get him the parts to build one of his inventions. A few pulleys, paracord, and hooks later, he had converted the swingset into a device designed to …
NED?!
How do you find "measurable disease" when there isn't any? I had postponed writing this post, not trusting my interpretation of Eli's latest scans. There's pretty much always something on his scans that raise questions about whether something indicates the cancer is being active or not. The long and short of it is: There is …
Fevers, Transfusions, and Hindsight
10:03 PM We just finished cycle 6 of the chemo protocol last week. Each cycle is 3 weeks. Unfortunately, he has a fever. Our family has been going through a virus of some sort (Covid test came back negative), but regardless, Eli caught it just when I thought we were out of the woods. He …
Stable
The head/neck MRI showed the tumor behind/ below Eli's eye is stable. This is good news. Our team discussed the findings and decided on two more cycles (6 weeks) of chemo, then we'll do more scans. Basically, as long as what we're doing is working, we'll keep doing, unless other toxicities appear. Thursday, we were …
Mom’s Turn
Last week Eli had the week off of chemo and all other medical stuff, so I decided to take care of my own medical housekeeping. I didn't set out to compete with Eli for number of medical appointments in a week, but it was almost a tie. Tuesday: About 2 1/2 years ago I had …
“Houston, I have a problem…
...and it's cancer!" -Elijah Augustine Today we celebrated Peter's birthday. His was my shortest labor and lasted about 45 minutes. It was the only time my water broke at the beginning of labor, but I usually give birth about 45 minutes after my water breaks, so that part was normal. It may be Peter's birthday, …
Eli The Boss 