Don't Get Too Comfortable...

Sorry I haven't posted sooner but we have had a hectic schedule. Xavier's treatments have been going well, but we have had a bit of a scare recently. Last Thursday the 7th X had his usual clinic visit, spinal chemo, IV push chemo, and also an intramuscular chemotherapy drug that is given in each of his thighs called a PEG. He had this PEG the day he was discharged from the hospital. This drug is known to cause allergic reactions, so the 1st time he had it we had to wait 4 hours to see how he would do. He did well with it the 1st time, so we assumed he would do fine w/ this one as well. We stayed at clinic for 1 hour after he had all of his meds so they could keep an eye on everything, and we were discharged w/ no problem. He was sore but no other major issues. We went home and had been there for about 3 hours when X came out of his room and said his lip felt funny. I looked at him and his eyes and mouth were swelling up! I immediately called the Dr and was told to give him benadryl now and come back to the clinic at once so he could be taken care of, and was also warned that if he had trouble breathing I would need to go to the nearest emergency room. Needless to say I made it to CHOC in about 20 minutes! Thank God for Fastrak! We arrived and Xavier received a shot of hydrocortisone for the reaction. He also needed a blood transfusion because his lab results showed that his hemoglobin levels were too low. His blood was from the designated donor program set up for him at CHOC. The nurse was not allowed to give me the name of the donor but if your donor # is FE20709 we want to thank you and let you know X received your blood! We appreciate the donations so much and you can see that they are truly needed. Anyways I am happy to say X is doing well now and over the allergic reaction. This was a definite reminder that we can't get too comfortable in our situation, you never know what can happen. Thanks again for the love and support.

Cherie