Tom must meet certain criteria before each normal chemotherapy session, for his own protection. They check his blood counts and determine whether all levels are safe to proceed. Each type of cancer has it's own roadmap or treatment protocol that lays all the requirements, dosage and frequencies out.
On Monday, we went to the clinic for a checkup to determine if he was ready for Chemo #9. His Neutrophil (a certain type of white blood cell) count was too low for chemo, but not so low that he couldn't be out in public, fortunately! Tom loves that sweet spot. We'll go back on Wednesday morning to check again, and perhaps he will be admitted for a 6 day stay at that point.
So it was off to Saskatoon - we had been given tickets to the 5th place game for the World Jr. Hockey championship. We had fun and really appreciated the opportunity. Finland defeated Russia 4 to 3 in a very evenly matched game. The score was tied twice and the audience was quite into it - by no means did it feel like a 'nothing' game. This pic of my guys was taken about 45 minutes prior to the game, the stands were about 2/3rd full by game time.
The low counts are likely the result of the combination of chemo before Christmas together with the combined effect of all those radiation treatments. If his white counts don't come up soon, we wonder if they won't prescribe GCSF injections again to stimulate them. We'll see what the doc says tomorrow.
Tom and Nick caught a movie this afternoon. Another nice surprise is that Mike's nephew Trevor, his wife Sharon and their little sweetheart Annelise are in town and coming to visit tonight. We'll watch the gold medal final game at home tonight together with them, and enjoy another night out of the hospital. We have to fit in what we can when he's feeling well, because we know that the pendulum will swing the other way again all too soon.
As far as we know the visitor restriction is still in place at the Pasqua Pediatrics ward, but will update the sidebar if that changes, and post which room Tom is in.
Bye for now, hope everyone is well.
Thomas' Mom
