Clinic 11-21-11 and Feeling Better

Last Monday was probably our best clinic visit yet in terms of Jacob’s disposition. There was no glaring (see previous post). The reason he was so pleasant was that he didn’t seem hungry; we learned that we can give him Jell-o before going to clinic even if he isn’t suppose to ‘eat’ anything. He can only have clear liquids and Jell-o is considered a ‘clear liquid’ (for anesthesia purposes anyway). So Jacob got Jell-o for breakfast and was much happier. Hooray! And his clinic time was earlier than last week so he didn’t have to fast as long. And we think his appetite might be decreasing—just a little bit though. Still ate a great Thanksgiving dinner. Two, actually.

Jacob playing with the dinosaur robot while waiting for his procedure.

This was Jacob’s last lumbar puncture for this phase of chemo (I like to count any mile-markers that I can). So no clinic tomorrow since there is no lumbar puncture and no medicines that they need to administer at clinic. He just has the medicine we give him every night at home for the rest of the week and then this phase is done! And we are glad to have tomorrow off. Things are actually starting to feel “back to normal” around here. Jacob is taking this phase very well (doctors said it’s generally an ‘easier’ one).

His ANC went from 4.0 last week to 1.1 this week, but that was still good enough to spend Thanksgiving with extended family—which we were grateful for. And his energy is much better, he is a lot happier and we feel like we have “the old Jacob” back.

There is much less of this happening:

And even some of this happening instead:

He is vacuuming and doing extra chores—trying to earn money for more Star Wars Legos, isn’t that great? I love it.

He still wears his jammies ninety percent of the time though. He loves his jammies, always has. The other day I was trying to talk him into getting dressed, even coaxing him a little: “You know, you feel better when you get dressed, you feel less lazy…” I was telling him.

He responded in a plain, matter-of-fact voice, “yeah, but I do have cancer,” (it’s so hard to convey his tone by typing—there was no self-pity whatsoever, just stating a fact).

And I thought, “well, that’s true, Buddy—you do have a point there.”

Of course, he stayed in his jammies.