Things have been going okay.  Andrew still has his feeding tube, and we feed about 16 hours a day.  Because he is still vomiting once to twice a day he is a little dehydrated so we are needing to give him saline via IV as well for 2 hours everyday.  He is taking it pretty well and just takes his little backpack with his fluids and pump around with him.  His blood counts look good so far, and we will go to the doctor tomorrow to double check them again.

And as promised here is the St. Baldricks speech.  ;0)

Taylor and Rumble

We met some nice guys who were going to be shaving their head at St. Baldricks Saturday as well, and invited Andrew to do the first swipe.  Toby is below with his green hair getting shaved by Andrew.

Andrew and Toby

Sucess!

  Then when Mom went up to get shaved Andrew gave a little speech.  He thanked everyone for coming, and told them that cancer does suck, but we are thankful for the support and thank you for donating.  We will post the video soon.  Then he took the first shave of one of the nurses who cares for him at St. Lukes Andrew #2.

Andrew #1 shaving Andrew #2

Next it was time for Mom.

Locks for Love here we come

Now we are the baldy ones….

We are home from the hospital!  Andrew was such a trooper, although the procedure for putting in the feeding tube was not pleasant, his complaints were few.  They gave him some adavan to help him “chill” and he was very loopy and very funny by the time they began.  Then they used lidocaine to numb his nostril.  They inserted the tube up his nose, down his throat and into his stomach.

After the tube was in, Andrew was  a little loopy and didn’t understand why his nose felt so funny so he kept touching his nose, so I had to capture the moment.

He gagged quite a bit after it was in, but no vomit which was great!  He wanted to see what it looked like….

Then he needed an x-ray to ensure it’s placement was correct in his stomach.

Then I left for about 5 minutes to get some bags out of the car, and naughty Andrew had pulled off the tape and was attempting to pull it out.  No worries, he didn’t get to do it and the medications wore off so that he had better reasoning skills and now leaves his nose hose alone.

Thus far he is taking it pretty well, although he is very upset that it was not able to come out before we left the hospital.  The tube is a little irritating right now, but we are told that he will get used to it and will barely know it is there.  We will keep it in until he can eat well enough to keep his calories up.  We will update again soon.  Thank you everyone!

So today was the deadline to see if we could get Andrew to eat enough food to keep him healthy.  I am not happy to say that he is still not able to eat enough to help his body recover from the treatments.  He will be admitted to the hospital tomorrow to have a feeding tube inserted into his abdomen.  This is safer for him, there is less chance of an infection, and it utilizes his digestive tract which is important as well.  He is kind of scared, but admits that food does not make him happy right now and this will help him a great deal.  He should be released from the hospital Saturday if all goes well.  We will keep you updated.

We went to the doctor yesterday for Andrew’s in and out chemo.  He did well during the appointment and was cracking jokes the whole time.  However, he lost one pound from Friday to Monday, not good.  He is throwing up a lot more with this round.  We are hoping a new medication patch behind the ear will help and we can get his weight under control.  If by Thursday his eating does not improve we might have to put a feeding tube in his abdomen.  It is safer than the IV nutrients he was getting before, less likely to cause an infection, and allows his digestive tract to be used.  He is keeping up with his school work, and looking forward to watching Mom get her head shaved so is telling everyone about it.  We will try to do a webcast later this week.  Thank you so much everyone who is supporting us in thought, body, and spirit.