Happy Birthday!

We’ve had a fairly decent week all things considered. JT had a day off on Monday before Transplant day on Tuesday. I’ve decided we’re going to celebrate a second birthday, August 24, from now on for Sydney and JT to honor what these kids have had to endure. Transplant is pretty anti-climatic for JT and involves an IV drip of Sydney’s bone marrow. For Sydney, it’s much more painful and invasive. For those of you who have witnessed their child coming out of anesthesia, you can attest that it is quite interesting what comes “out of the mouth of babes” during this time! She was able to visit JT briefly after the hour long procedure, then headed home with Jim where she continues to nurse pain & nausea with sleep and medication.


JT began his second chemo drug, Methotrexate, on Day 1 (Wednesday). He’ll receive two more doses – one on Day 3 and one on Day 6 to keep his immune system depressed. His counts are slowly dropping as the pre-transplant treatment kicks in. They expect him to get pretty sick within the next week since they increased the dose of the Cytoxin chemo this go around. He has not been able to eat and as a result has lost 7 pounds this past week. They came in yesterday to put the NG tube in (not sure if that is the correct word, but I referred to it as the nose to gut tube during the first transplant). We managed to postpone the inevitable with the promise of eating. So yesterday he managed two servings of good ol’ Hamburger Helper and half a Snickers bar. Not enough calories unfortunately so today we’ll put the tube in.

The nausea has tapered off for now, but they told him it will return. His taste buds are shot which is part of the reason he’s not eating. He is also developing mucousitis (I have no clue how to spell that one) – basically mouth sores and deadening of the tissue in his throat. They will put him on a morphine pump in the next day or two to combat the pain that comes along with it. The diarrhea continues to be bothersome for him as well. All a part of the process!

On a more positive note, because he is not taking any nausea/sleepy medicine, he has been feeling good enough to resume his laps and the hospital teacher was in for a few hours yesterday to keep him on track with his school work! We’ve also been having fun playing games and watching endless episodes of goofy kid shows. For the next week or so, we’ll continue to keep close watch on his blood counts with the prayer that after they hit bottom, Sydney’s bone marrow will come in do what it needs to as quickly and painlessly as possible. Jim and I will continue to swap out every few days so we can spend time with both kids. As always, thanks everyone for following the blog, checking in with us and most importantly for your continued prayers for our family!

xo Sabrina