NO MORE CHEMO

We did it!!! Caleb did it!!! Caleb drank his last dose of chemo last night! We woke him up, as we usually do with this particular chemo (Alisertib). He has to take it at least 2 hours after eating, and can’t eat for 1 hour after. If anyone knows Caleb, telling him he couldn’t eat for that long during the day would NOT make him very happy! Plus this chemo makes him feel a little “loopy”, so sleeping off some of the effects is another positive of giving it to him at night. So every chemo cycle, for 7 nights in a row, we walk in his room and wake him from his sleep to give him his dose of chemo (with an orange juice chaser!) Here is a video of last night… I had to capture the very last time he’ll have to drink this stuff!

And a few more pictures from earlier in the week of him drinking one of his last doses!

And even though it was dark in his room, we scooped him up for a hug and a family selfie ha ha! Dark and grainy but I’ll always remember the moment when he was finally finished. I dreamed of this day for over a year and it finally came!

He’s been home with me for a week, and although it’s a bit difficult to handle his “loopiness” some days I couldn’t help but wonder how much I’ll miss him when he’s in school full time. We did many activities, from playing with toys, to baking banana bread, to cooking dinner, and playing outside.

We usually spend our morning bouncing from one activity to the next, and then after lunch he kind of “crashes” from the chemo. He took many naps this week, which is good because his body needed it!

We had a count check this morning at TGH just to see where he was at. His counts are already on the way down, as expected. His Hgb was 8.9, platelets 39, and ANC 550. We are going back again Friday because we are thinking he may need a platelet transfusion before the weekend just to make sure he’s safe and we don’t have an ER visit over the weekend.

We have a few plans to celebrate, both at TGH and at St. Jude, after his body fully recovers. He is done with chemo, and that needs to be celebrated, but I think in our minds we also want to wait for his official post treatment scans to come back so we know we can REALLY celebrate. Those are scheduled in Memphis for the 3rd week of February. Fingers crossed that he is recovered enough to fly and his counts are high enough to undergo the anesthesia for his MRI and lumbar puncture. If not we will have to postpone them, but we really don’t want to do that. So prayers that his body recovers enough in the next couple weeks!!! More updates soon! Thank you as always for your love and support and we can feel everyone’s excitement along with us that CHEMO IS DONE!!!!