The Bacon Family Blog

Joey's week has been a little hard.  He didn't feel great all weekend until Sunday night, when he started eating everything in sight again.  Each afternoon, he seems to get a low-grade fever.  He also developed horrible gas.  His tummy looks pregnant and he complains that it really hurts.  The other symptoms seem to change regularly: he goes from being really tired to wired, not wanting to eat to starving and eating as much as we'll let him, happy to angry, constipated to diarrhea (TMI, I know), etc.  We never know what we'll get minute to minute.  Dr. Rosen reassured me today that these things are all normal with the sickness & meds.  Thankfully he still hasn't gotten very nauseous - it could be much worse.  As of 2 days ago, he's gained 6 pounds.  His clothes are all getting too small. Starting tomorrow, I'm going to put him in sweats-type clothes each day.   

When I got to Tree House yesterday, he was sleeping and I instantly noticed that his color was gone again.  He was much more lathergic yesterday and today, so I wasn't surprised when the blood test showed his counts were low.  We are going in for a blood transfusion tomorrow.  His white count dropped dramatically down to 0.6 - the lowest so far.  That is also normal while getting chemo.

October is always a busy month for us and I want this one to be as normal as possible for both kids (esp. Katherine).  I got a little overwhelmed today trying to figure out how to manage everything for the next 2 weeks.  If I didn't have a full-time job, it would be a little easier, but that job is providing the insurance that is paying for most of Joey's medical bills, so it's very important.  I can't really complain since they are being great and working with me. 

My day tomorrow: I'm working from home in the morning, having lunch at school with Katherine, going to the hospital for the afternoon (where I'm going to try to work), picking Katherine up, and then hosting 9 girls for a slumber party for Katherine's birthday.  It's taking some coordination and help from some friends that I'm happy to accept.  It wouldn't be fair to Katherine to make her skip over her birthday because Joey is sick, so we're making it work.

Thank you all for your continuing prayers.  We've gotten a little more discouraged this week, but what we're experiencing is all normal when dealing with leukemia, and it should get better once he's out of the induction phase in a couple of weeks.   

We took another picture of Joey with his growing cheeks.