Clinic 11/28

Playing on the computer in the waiting room.

Carter had his monthly clinic visit today.  Everything went great!  He's doing so well.  His blood counts are awesome:  White blood cell count 3100, ANC 2400, Hemoglobin 9.9 and platelets 408,000.  They like to keep his ANC between 750 and 1500 and since it's been consistently higher than that, they doctor increased the dosage on one of his medications.  Whenever they increase or decrease the medicine during maintenance they do it very slowly in the hopes that there won't be a dramatic drop in counts.  Other than that, everything is going fantastic.
He had a sedation today for another lumbar puncture with chemo in his spinal fluid.  I have talked with the nurses a few times throughout this last month about doing a "conscious sedation" instead.  Carter really hates the sedation medicine and he's been throwing up every time he wakes up from it lately.  The conscious sedation is where they give him some other drug that doesn't knock him out but still dulls the pain.  It sounds to me like the medicine that dentists use but I don't know how similar it is.  They usually don't do it with kids so young but I know Carter would be still and cooperative.  They couldn't get it arranged for this time but we talked about trying it out in Feb (our Dr. will be gone for our Dec appt and there's no sedation in Jan).  But his sedation went so well today that I don't know if I'll even bother trying it.  Also, I told Carter today what they do when he "takes his nap".  I've never told him that they stick a needle in his back because I thought it would freak him out but his only response was, "And I don't even feel it?  Because I'm asleep?"  with a grin on his cute little face.  So then I asked him if he wanted to try doing it without being asleep and he looked at me like I was crazy.  I think we'll stick with the sedations for now.  (After he woke up today his first words were, "I didn't even feel my back poke!")  I am pretty sure I know the trick, it's all about an afternoon appointment.  They try to schedule sedations as early as possible so the kids don't have to be fasting all day long.  They just skip breakfast and come on in.  For Carter, he does much better if he can have breakfast and drink juice the rest of the day.  The downside is traffic coming home after an afternoon appointment is no bueno.  But it's a sacrifice I will make for a happy boy.  And was he ever happy today.  He loves all the attention he gets from everyone at the hospital.  The nurses are always so nice.  He did something (don't remember what) and I jokingly asked him if he thought the nurse would get mad and he told me, "No, nurses NEVER get mad.  They are always SO nice!"  And his chemo pal came and did battle with him today:

This is Carter's favorite thing to do with him.  They line up the dinosaurs and then Carter beats them all with his giant ant.  Today they added ninjas and a transformer to the battle mix.  They had a blast.  And everyone was so excited to see how long and thick his hair is.  Everyone commented on how great it looks and how handsome he is.  Like I didn't already know.  And in case you're wondering, there was no trouble at all today with his port!  YAY!!!!  A few nurses came in to tell me how excited they were that it's working now.  It was a good visit and I'm glad it's over.