Day 1 of Chemo. Another tender mercy, and what the..... are we doing???

9:34:00 PM Atticus Army 0 Comments

Hey Army,

Well, we have officially started Chemotherapy as of 10 am this morning.  The chemotherapy treatment is made up of a whole onslaught of different medication.  Fun Fact, Chemotherapy literally means to treat therapeutically with chemicals, so really giving your child Tylenol is a form of Chemotherapy, however, it is typically accepted to imply the treatment of cancer. 

Be that as it may, Atticus will go through 2 primary phases in his chemo treatment.  The first phase will consist of 3 cycles that will that typically last 3-4 weeks each.  During this cycle, the chemo drugs that he will be given are Vincristine, Etoposide, Cyclophosphamide, and Cisplatin.  On top of this, he will be given a few different prophylactic drugs for nausea, and to protect his bladder and kidneys, and for an immune system stimulant.  I think, rather than spend the time right now explain each of these and the side effects I will kind of hit on them as time goes, and then create a separate page with each of the explanations.  I am sure that there will be a LOT of information that might not make sense at first but as time goes on we will have an ARMY of experts!!!

So onto some AMAZING NEWS.  If you recall on the post " And now the whole story of a whirlwind of personalities, and tender mercies" ( you can click on it to recap if you wish), Emmie and I were the recipients of such an amazing miracle with the disappearance of the masses at the base of his brain stem.  In that same radiology report where they found those masses, they also found metastases all down his spine.  After the tender mercy we received they were inclined to do another full body MRI to re-evaluate his spine as well and double check the brain stem.  Well, that was our MRI we had yesterday.  I am now so VERY thrilled to let you all know that he OFICALLY HAS NO METASTIES ANYWHERE!!! 

Emmie and I are just so beside ourselves, and so amazed that we have been afforded two amazing miracles, and we know it is thanks to the amazing army we have behind us.  So ATTICUS'S ARMY, thank you from the bottom of our hearts.  We are so humbled at the faith and strength of this army.

Well, now on to the day's events.  As already stated Chemo started this morning at 10 am, and continued until 5 this evening.  Each time we come in for the beginning of a cycle, his routine will be about the same.  Chemo during the day, and control of symptoms the rest of the time.  Atticus, for the most part, did really well throughout the day.  They did have to start giving him steroids again, so we did start to see his ROIDER rage come out a bit.  Hopefully, it won't be to bad this round as he doesn't have to be on it near as long or as high of a dose as he did after his surgery.  But other than that we saw some fun glimpses of our cute, outgoing, strong willed little boy that we so adore. 

Atticus was quite attentive when we started chemo this morning.

After chemo started we got a fun visit from Grandma, aunt Ashley, and his brother and sister.  We just love, love, love having all of our children here and are so happy that we stuck to our guns to ensure our little family unit stays together.  If you all could see precious little Atticus's face each time they come you would immediately understand.  It just lights up with excitement and makes him feel at home.  Atticus, of course, wanted to play with them so off we went to the halls again.  While we were out touring and playing soccer, we ran into some clowns that go from room to room at times with musical instruments.  They pulled out some bubbles and of course Atticus liked them right away. 




After that, We had a little nap but then it started.  Atticus was fast asleep and then out of nowhere he sat up spit his binky out and threw up all over.  We felt so so bad for the little guy.  He just looked up at us like what the heck was that.  We could immediately tell he didn't feel well at all.  It is so hard as a parent knowing exactly what is causing your poor little child to be sick, but have to make the choice to continue giving him the thing that makes him sick.  Later in the evening as we finally got his nausea under control (for the time being) I looked at Emmie and said, " What are we doing here hun?  How did we end up here?"  And it's true.  We were so excited about our new adventure, we had the kiddos all registered for school, even had a back to school special dinner night and everything.  Then our of left field we are living our of suitcases in someone else's home hundreds of miles from our own.  And to top it all off we are making our little one feel like..... well you know. 

We, of course, see the bigger picture and understand the necessity of the treatments.  But if any of you find a way to explain that to a 21 month old, to make it all better??? Please Please share. 

Mom, Dad, and Atticus all snuggling just before bed.

Another thing that Emmie and I are just sick about is that our two other kiddos are starting school tomorrow.  Which in the big picture we are very happy about.  They definitely need some structure and normalcy in their life.  But we are just so so sad that we don't get to send them off.  We always have a special breakfast, take first day of school pictures, wait anxiously for them to get home and talk all about their first day of school.  On top of all of that it is Ryker's first time going and they have all day kindergarten.  I know that they are in good hands with Grandma, and aunt Ashley.  But it just isn't the same with out Mom and Dad.  I sure hope they do well.