The only germs floating around our house right now appears to be some sort of cold. Both boys have a bit of a cough and Julien has had a continuous runny nose for some time now. Julien also just finished a course of antibiotics when he had a fever that was difficult to break. It seems impossible to get away from sickness. It's that time of year.
We're back in London for routine chemo (kinda sad but true that I can say that) as part of the delayed intensification phase. This phase includes two more weeks of treatment before we can move on to the final phase, maintenance. That may sound good, but it's about 1.5-2 years long. Ugh....
In the past, Luis was given a daily oral chemo drug called 6-mercaptopurine (6-MP) on an empty stomach, which is defined as 2 hours after eating and 1 hour before eating. The first two week period on 6-MP, I gave it near bedtime, say 8:00 p.m. This schedule was inconvenient. It meant dinners had to be done by 6:00 p.m. and no bedtime snacks. The next time he was on 6-MP, I tried it in the morning. I gave it to him when he awoke, then I had to wait one hour to feed him breakfast. This was convenient but I didn't realize it was going to hurt his tummy. These last two weeks, Luis was on a similar drug, 6-thioguanine (6-TG), that required an empty stomach. I tried a tip from another cancer mama. I gave it at 10:00 p.m. That way, he could eat what he wanted in the evening before bed. Then I had to wake him enough in the night to sip his medicine from a syringe. This timing seemed to work.
Why is nailing down this medicine schedule such a big deal, you may be asking??? Over the next phase (1.5-2 years, as I mentioned), Luis needs to take 6-MP on an empty stomach around the same time every day!! For the lightest phase of treatment, it's already looking like quite a pain.
Ah well, the crazy year of 2012 is finally over and here's hoping 2013 will offer some relief.
--Mommy
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