Owen’s Leukemia – Day 17

Thursday December 6 – Owen was feeling pretty good this morning.  He actually had some energy and wanted to show Daddy that he could walk by himself!  He took a couple steps, then knelt down.  He is still building up those leg muscles.  He got a game called Elefun and wanted to try it out.  It is this elephant that blows these “butterflies” out of its long trunk.  He was actually standing a little trying to catch the butterflies.  He loves it!!  (And Logan loves watching him play)

Thursday was the first day he didn’t get a bead of courage for anything since he was diagnosed.  I think of it as kind of a good thing… no pokes, no chemo, no antibiotics…

Friday December 7 – Today was a pretty good day too.  He didn’t want to walk as much today because he said his knees were bothering him.  It might be the Vincristine or that he was so active yesterday.  Either way, he was still so excited that the physical therapist was coming to play today.

His Doctor called today to tell me the MRD (Minimal Residual Disease) results and what they found when they did the X-Ray on Wednesday.  Owen has been having heart palpitations throughout the day and it doesn’t seem to occur at any particular time or when he is doing anything specific.  We talked to the doctors on Wednesday about this and they said that it is possible that the tube that goes from his port towards his heart might be a little long, and sometimes it could kind of “tickle” the heart causing it to palpitate.  So the X-Ray showed that it is a little long…  for them to shorten it requires another surgery.  For now, we are to monitor it and see if he keeps having them, and if so, when they do the next bone marrow biopsy on Day 29, they will shorten it then.  I feel bad that he will have to go into surgery again, but it really scares him when “his belly is beating really fast” and I can’t imagine him having to go through that for the next 3 years.  She said that the results for the MRD were good.  What they are looking for is to see if his body is responding to the chemo.  The saw a decrease in the cancer cells, but there are still some there.  This is exactly what they were expecting.  Like I said before, the big telling day is at 29, and they will see if there are any then.  That is when they want none.  They said it is extremely rare for them all to be gone by day 8, so he is progressing as expected.

He had a fun time this morning doing a craft for Christmas:

Look at this pudgy little face… steroids.  They say it will go back down after this whole month of steroids.

Today I received a card from a very sweet friend.  She included a few quotes that she thought might help along the way… I will end today with this:

Worrying does not empty tomorrow of its troubles, it empties today of its strength. ~Mary Engelbreit