Week 2 Round 2

Giving Carter his medicine

We headed back to the clinic yesterday. Carter's numbers are going down, as expected, with all the chemo he's been getting. White blood cell count is 2000 with an ANC of 1000. Hemoglobin 8.1 and platelets 213,000. It was a relatively quick visit this time. After the blood counts, he was sedated for another lumbar puncture. The sedation nurse was really awesome this time. She was really cute with Carter and she kept telling me how cute he is. He snaked 4 bags of fruit snacks out of my bag and carried them with him over to the procedure room. All the nurses thought it was hilarious that he wanted to have them with him so he could eat them as soon as he woke up. Before they gave him the sleepy medicine, she asked him if he wanted her to put a sticker on his shirt while he slept so he would have a surprise when he woke up. He was pretty excited about that. It's a pretty quick procedure, just about 10 or 15 minutes. He does well with the sedation, thankfully. He wakes up happy and it just takes a couple minutes before he's ready to be up and moving around again. They gave him all his chemo while we waited for him to wake up so we were good to go as soon as he was awake. But he just wanted to stay and play!
I had forgotten how active a 3 year-old can be! This past week or so Carter has been up playing all the time. He was finally giving Jude a run for his money! I knew it wouldn't last long so I just enjoyed watching them chase each other around and happily complied when asked to join the game. Just today, he's slowed down a lot though. He spent most of the day on the couch and even threw up once :( I was hoping to avoid that side effect all together. Poor little guy. He also has zero appetite. All he ate yesterday was fruit snacks and a pickle. THAT'S ALL!
On the bright side, we'll be done with his antibiotics on Friday! That means no more "little friend". We are all very much looking forward to that. Although, he does have a pretty awesome Lightening McQueen backpack now. It even has wheels and a handle so he puts his little friend in that and pulls it around behind him. It's pretty cute. Maybe now we'll use it to take his books and things to the hospital. It's about time he starts carrying his own stuff! :)

P.S. It snowed here today! And do you like his hammer and Buzz Lightyear slippers? Yeah, he does too.