Does Kung Fu Panda have tubie?

Our new favorite movies are Kung Fu Panda 1 & 2.  Actually these are the only movies we have been watching since moving to Hem/Onc floor.  Lucas enjoys the action as well as the silliness of the black and white.  He has many belly laughs throughout the movie.  I found myself still enjoying it after watching it probably the 6th time in 3 days.

He has a hard time to decide whether the fortune teller sheep was good or evil.  I told him that even though the sheep was seen with evil peacock, she is good since she helped Kung Fu panda later on as a doctor.  Then Lucas asked: does Kung Fu panda have tubie?  In his mind, tubie is a must to be treated medically.  :)

He kept referring to Kung Fu Panda 3 as well (because Shrek has number 1, 2, 3, 4).   I looked it up and it will be out 2016.  Hopefully by then I can take the boys to the move theater to watch it!

Chemo tomorrow on schedule

Since it has been shown that the seizure last Thursday has no direct association with chemo, the doctors decide that chemo will still be on schedule.  Lucas will get another dose of vincristine, together with high dose methotrexate, which would require 3 days of clearing.  Lucas has been doing well the past 2 days.  He eats very well and is very playful.  He even allowed the company of nurse and PCA while we stepped away to get food from cafeteria.  Finger poking is still every 4 hours and he doesn't cry at all now with the actual penlet/lancet for the glucose machine.  I learned how to use it by doing it on my own fingers.  It's going to be part of our life now.

It's great to see Lucas so well today and it's sad to know that he will have another chemo tomorrow and will have huge canker sores in his mouth and don't feel well in general.  We just have to remind ourselves that he is not cured yet and the extra medication does more good than evil.  It's hard to look ahead to 3 more years of chemo considering what we have experienced the past 3+ weeks.  It's in my nature to plan ahead for everything and I really have to try harder to live one day at a time.

I came back home this evening and took my parents and Alex out for grocery shopping.  I will have a good night of sleep tonight and get ready for 2-3 hard nights of 1 diaper every 1.5 hours.

Got a room in Hem/Onc floor

The floor is truly packed!  The nurses and PCAs we are getting are all floaters from other floors.  Lucas is in stable conditions and good spirits.  I came back home to get some good sleep since I didn't get much sleep last night.  Usually they give the more experienced nurses to patients who would undergo chemotherapy so we are not surprised to get the floaters.  They won't let us go home before the endocrinologists figure out what causes sudden unpredictable drop in glucose.  The scheduled chemo is next Tuesday and it might get delayed if they couldn't rule out chemo side effect from the picture.  In any case, it will be another longer stay in the hospital.

Still in ICU

MRI cleared!  Doing glucose tolerance test now -- no food and no sugar IV until his glucose drops to 50 -- then get a blood sample for lab studies.  He hasn't eaten since 8pm yesterday and was taken off glucose IV 5pm.  His glucose was 67 on 10pm.  It's not dropping as quickly as we thought and I have mixed feelings for that -- I want this test to be done so he could start eating tomorrow, but on the other hand I'm happy that his glucose does not always crash like it did.  And I want this glucose below 50 to happen before I go to bed so I can help to assess to prevent him having another seizure.  I had to remind the doctor to get the dextrose bolus ready since apparently you cannot always tell the happening of seizure by heart rate monitor, pulse monitor, oxygen monitor, blood pressure monitor, and breathing monitor.  And him sleeping at the time is definitely not very helpful.  So Jianwei and I are taking shifts to get some sleep tonight.

After the glucose tolerance test, we will be able to leave ICU and go to Hem/Onc floor tomorrow -- but it's full now and we hope somebody will be discharged tomorrow.  We regret complaining about 2 weeks stays at Hem/Onc floor -- we miss it immensely now and really want to leave ICU tomorrow (and never come back!).

Long day, short summary--in ICU now

Keywords in chronicle order: hard to wake up 8am; came to scheduled office visit 9:15am; low blood sugar 10am; seizure that lasted 30 minutes 10:30am; ICU 11am; CT 12pm; EEG 2pm; fever 3:30pm; spinal tap to check spinal infection 4pm; finally woke up but eye lids so puff that can't really open eyes 7pm; ate good dinner but super cranky.

He had probably a dozen drugs today.  2 anti-seisure drugs, 4 antibiotics, sedation drug, calming drug, Tylenol -- and there must be ones that I'm not aware of.

ICU for the tonight and tomorrow.  Glucose check every hour again.  MRI tomorrow and blood culture and spinal fluids results will be out tomorrow morning too.  If everything is negative and he is stable, he will be transferred to the Hem/Onc floor.  Since the seizure he had was life-threatening, they won't let us go home any time soon.

Cause of seizure still undecided.  Probably a combination of chemo side effects, low blood sugar, and bacterial/viral infection.

Chemo is not known to cause low blood sugar, but it might be a catalyst.  Cause is yet to be found.