What we have been up to

The wireless network at hospital was unavailable yesterday -- and that's my dedicated blog update time.  I gave up my cell phone to Lucas who usually needed the ipad for distraction.  I really don't think it's well designed that even for movies that I downloaded on iTunes -- i still need to connect to wi-fi to be able to view them!

Lucas has been doing well for the most part:
-- He lifted his shirt up and was relatively calm when his port got accessed yesterday.  I didn't need to have him sit on me and use my legs and arms and hands to completely restrain him.  I thought of knew it was going to be easier in the morning -- I didn't need to sit on his lower body, having my knees hold his arms, when I applied the numbing cream.  I think the reading of "Chemo to the Rescue" book is finally helping.

-- Lucas recognizes Shaina, his nurse practitioner, by name now.  He also remembers Cindy's name.  And he remembers Jessica from in-hospital stays.  So he got three names down finally -- which is superb for a mostly non-English speaking 2-yr-old.

-- ANC went back to 88.  This number needs to be 750 next Monday or his chemo will be delayed for a week.

-- Both hemoglobin and platelets went up last week.  He was eating well last week until the past Sunday.  Since Sunday, we saw an obvious drop in appetite.  He is still active, but not eating as much.  He would even gag on even a little bigger bites.  Today's dinner time for him lasted almost 2 hours -- without much intake after all the efforts.

-- We have one more thing to record now -- his excretion of liquid, time and weight.  He didn't pee yesterday until 3pm and the doctor was obviously worried about his not-so-soft tummy when she did his lumbar puncture at 2pm.  We had to stay longer after chemo and spinal tap yesterday to monitor his bladder.  At 3pm, he peed for about 200 gram.  Ultrasound right after that showed he still had more than 200 ml in his bladder.  One of the major chemo med, Vincristine, has the rare side effect that could weaken bladder muscles.  We felt Lucas was like this before (probably an aftermath of unsuccessful potty train episode before the diagnosis) so the doctor let us go home without him completely empty his bladder.  Now we need to make sure he drinks enough (40oz/day) and have enough output as well.  Today's count is 767gram so far (give or take, since we don't weigh the diaper when it has both peepee and poopoo in it).

-- We celebrated Chinese new year by watching a few Chinese cartoons on youtube.  I finally introduced Monkey King to them.  Daddy told them they have the same last name as Monkey King and they think it's rather magical.  :)