So, we are still waiting for Leo to be ready; he is doing very well and we went to the pumpkin patch on Saturday: he and Charlotte had a blast over there, especially in the jumpy! 🙂 This was our first taste of a more normal life and it felt great!

We will test him again on Thursday and probably start maintenance on Friday. In the meantime we will enjoy the week! 🙂

We found a very nicely decorated street close by that will be just fine for Trick or Treating and not too crowded. We all look forward to it! 😉

Since our little one was still neutropenic yesterday we didn’t start maintenance. He was also borderline for a transfusion, but they let his body recover on its own (his cells were on the way up), which we were happy about. We will test him again next Monday to see if we can start next Tuesday. It may even take 2 more weeks, we will see, and in the meantime we appreciate this little chemo break before we start the upcoming months of treatment.

It will certainly be lighter, but still Léo will be on chemo every single day. His protocol is based on a three month cycle: oral chemo everyday, methotrexate orally once a week. Finally, two months out of three he will have vincristine (I.V.) and a lumbar puncture + chemo in the spine. We will repeat it 4 times and then the following year it’ll be a little lighter. We will just have to find the right time to give him his oral chemo, as it has to be taken on an empty stomach… we will figure it out and we will get used to all this. It is a huge relief to have the intensive part behind us and of course we hope it worked and that these cells will never show up again.

Léo is in great shape; he is very active, plays, laughs a lot and he looks forward to Halloween! 😉 We will go to the pumpkin patch as soon as his counts are up, which should be right on time for us to carve a Jack-O-lantern! He had a lot of fun at Charlotte’s birthday last Saturday and he looks forward to seeing his own little friends again soon. A few playdates are already planned! 🙂

Oh, what a GREAT feeling: we are DONE with the intensive part of treatment!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂 and more 🙂 ! Leo is doing very well; we are waiting for his blood counts to see when we can start maintenance and if he needs another blood transfusion. But in any case he will be able to be on a regular diet very soon and go outside pretty much when he wants to, we won’t have to keep him away from other kids anymore. We will have to wait about 3 months for him to be stable in maintenance though. We will see how he does! In any case he did great all these past few months; we heard this morning that most kids repeat this very last phase… but no need for our little one! Yeah-yeah-yeah!!!!! 🙂 🙂

Today I asked him what he would like to eat: “carrots and raspberries”! Well, we will do a feast soon! 😉 And… he can go trick or treating! We’ll just plan to do it early this year to avoid crowds. Our little spider man will enjoy it! 😉

So, Leo ended up having his transfusion today along with platelets as his numbers dropped down to 20,000 over night, along with his ANC (700!). Everything went very smoothly; it was just another 4 hours at the hospital. His favorite nurse (Lorraine) had a few activities ready for him: it was so sweet and it kept him busy. Leo played with play dough, drew quite a bit, “read” stories and watched a bit of a dinosaur story. He fell asleep on the way back home until 4pm and then he was… FULL of energy! What a boost that he got; his donor was probably a marathon runner !!! 😉 We took him outside tonight for a bike ride as he will probably be neutropenic starting tomorrow. He was so thrilled and saw a couple of fire engines, a few crows and small details on the floor and elsewhere that made his day! 🙂

No more hospital until next week… and this one will be very light: just a “push”, his last dose of chemo for this phase (the one that he will actually get once a month while in maintenance).

We simply feel lighter and lighter!

Today everything was poorly organized at clinic (too many sick kids at the same time!) and we had to wait until 11:30 am for Leo to get his chemo and that had to run over 2 hours. In the meantime we got his blood results: ANC surprisingly was at 1,100 and his Hg down to 7.2 again. We will go back for a transfusion tomorrow morning at 9 am, as they couldn’t get it ready on time for today; oh well, it seems like it was enough hospital anyway! This time everything will be ready for him and we won’t have to wait. He might also get platelets as his level was pretty low; we will test him again in the morning and we will go from there.

We were told this morning that 50% of kids end up starting the maintenance phase just a week after they are done with this very last phase, and since Leo recovered so well so fast we might be starting on the 23d of October! Then we will be able to bring him along to do the groceries, take trips the park and even to the library if it’s not too crowded… we look forward to it, and I think he will readjust to all this very fast! 🙂

We just came back from clinic and Leo is taking his nap; when he wakes up we will take him outside: a nice unexpected break for a few days before he becomes neutropenic again over the weekend! Still, just a couple more weeks to go…

We are scheduled for the last strong chemo session tomorrow morning: yeaaaaahhhhhhh! Leo may need another transfusion, we will see… he is energetic though, just a little pale. Last Friday we had to go to the hospital on an emergency basis for rehydration. Leo was so nauseous, he just couldn’t eat or drink anything; we saw it coming and were able to make it on time before getting worried about it. It was quick, just a good hour all together over there. It helped him a lot and gave him a boost of energy. He has been doing very well ever since then; he still doesn’t have much appetite, but we know it’ll come back soon! 🙂

Well, we are just so happy to be almost done; next week it’ll be just a push of one chemo… then normally a week after we start the maintenance phase! 🙂 🙂 🙂 Geez, what a year!

We went to clinic today and we spent pretty much the whole day there. Uncle Marc was with us, which made it more fun to go through! 🙂 Léo didn’t wait too long for his LP, which also made things smoother; he was put to sleep at about 10:30 am and woke up just about an hour later.

He had to receive a blood transfusion today as his hemoglobin was so low (down to 7.2). Chemo is still working very well and the team is really happy. We also found out today, should any relapse come up, Léo would only receive more chemo, no radiation… because of his age, which sounds so much better! Anyway, we still hope that we won’t have to worry about it!

We are almost done… it’s hard to believe but it’s true! This week mama will do the nurse at home again once a day to give him his chemo intravenously. Then we will just go once a week twice before maintenance starts! Feels great! 🙂