It has happened again…Andrew is bald.  Although he is not showing any signs of losing his eyelashes or eye brows, his head is getting shinier by the day.  So Friday we went to the doctor because we realized that his digestive tract was no longer working, and his formula from his feeding tube was going straight through him with no absorption.  He lost 4.5 pounds in less than a week.  The dr. wanted to admit him, but he was still feeling ok and we begged to stay at home.  He is now on 100% IV nutrition through his port.   It goes all night long and gives him all the nutrients he needs.  He is feeling pretty good, but very shaky and weak.  He pulled out the nose hose for now, and is really enjoying the break!  He went to the doctor yesterday and his neutrophil counts have decreased quite a bit since Friday, but we are hoping they will recover before his next chemo admit on September 1^st. 

Andrew starts school next week and he is so excited.  He will have the same tutor, but two different teachers, one from Monroe and one at St. Luke’s school.  He will attend St. Luke’s school Mon, Wed, and Fridays from 1-4 as long as he has the strength, and the tutor will visit twice a week.  We are hoping Andrew will be able to be more involved with his homeroom class at Monroe through webcam lessons and attending some fieldtrips if he is able.

Andrew had a photoshoot a couple weeks back for St. Baldricks.  I thought I would share some of the amazing pictures Rachel Kemble took.

Eyes of Hope

Chillin in the pool

I figured it was time to recap all that is going on with Andrew…because it is confusing for me and I live it with him every day!  So Andrew has completed 6 of 9 chemo sessions on the 6^thof August and released from the hospital on Friday the 7^th.  He was then readmitted to the hospital Monday the 10^th due to increased vomiting and extreme fatigue and was released Friday night.  So he has three chemo sessions to go, and if he does not get ill which could prevent him from doing one of them on time, he will finish the end of November.  He will not be able to go back to public school until January or February if this is the case, but will be attending the St. Luke’s hospital school and getting help from the Boise school district tutor. 

His stomach does not empty or digest, therefore he cannot eat any food by mouth, all it does is cause him to create more acid.  Since his stomach does not empty the only way to drain the acid/bile that is produced is by vomiting.  He can sometimes go one day without vomiting but makes up for it in the following days.   He gets full nutrition through his feeding tube which is placed down in his digestive tract and runs for at least 18 hours a day.  He gets very fatigued very easily and therefore uses a wheelchair whenever we go anywhere in public.  His digestive issues are directly related to the chemo poisoning his GI tract and we are expecting it to correct itself after his treatments are over.  However, from this point on, his health will continue to deteriorate  until he finishes, so we are just pushing to get through it until then. 

He went to the doctor today because he has started getting colon spasms that cause extreme pain in his back/spine area, which the doctor suspects is colitis.  He is getting tested to see if he has a bacterial infection causing it, if there is no infection it is once again due to the chemo and will not resolve until after treatment.   I will update when we learn more about how it will apply to Andrew.  Thank you so much for all the support and love as well as the wonderful notes people are leaving on Andrew’s website, he, Taylor and I read them and appreciate every one of them.

Andrew was released Friday night and he seemed to be doing pretty well considering this was his 6^th treatment and it was a hard one.  Saturday he enjoyed his sisters company now that she is back, but Sunday he hit a wall.  He got really dark circles around his eyes and he was incredibly irritable and spent most of the day in his room and didn’t have the energy to walk around. 

Yesterday morning he would not get out of bed when my cousin came to watch him and he told her he couldn’t do his physical therapy, which is very out of character for him, he loves physical therapy.  By noon he had thrown up three times.  So we took him to the dr. and he got fluids and some anti-nausea medication.  He still looked bad when I left him, but my cousin said he had perked up and the dark circles had gone away.  Alas, when I got home around 6 he was back to the way he was before.  I gave him more meds and he threw up another two times with increasing blood in both.  That was enough for me, we called the dr.  and he told us to go to the ER.  So we spent most of the night there and were admitted to the pediatric wing around 1:00am and finally were able to go to bed around 2:00am.  He woke up this morning gagging and threw up but is looking a little better, less like death, more like really pasty kid.  He gets more chemo today but it shouldn’t affect him too much.  We hope this will be a short stay.

Andrew was admitted for his 6th round of chemo on Tuesday.  The chemo didn’t start until late Tuesday night and finished late Wednesday night.  He did very well yesterday, although he looked miserable he didn’t complain and still tried to enjoy his sister’s company until she gave him a sloppy wet kiss…I was afraid for her life!

Andrew’s last chemo dose was given at midnight last night, and he did not do well.  He has very bad diarrhea which is very unusual for this type of treatment, then he threw up all over himself and his bed around 2:00.  Then when he got up to go to the bathroom again he started speaking incoherently and complaining of a horrible headache.  His nausea lessened around 3 and things calmed down enough to try to sleep around 3:30.  They are testing his stool to make sure he didn’t get any horrible viruses during this treatment, and he is staying because his nausea is still pretty unbearable.  He is finally napping now, and we hope he can get some good catch up sleep for a while today.

We are still in the hospital and just finished meeting with the doctor and the earliest Andrew will be released is tomorrow.

Because Andrew is such a big fan of Harry Potter, we made him his own newspaper, like in the movies. We called it The Not-Daily Prophet, have a look:

http://andrewvanderploeg.com/news/