some info

I did a bit of tabulating and came up with some figures.

Since January 13th:

• We have been going to MD Anderson daily for 35 days.  
• He has been inpatient for 20 of those days.
• On his outpatient days we have been at MDA for as little as 3 hours and as long as 15 hours.
• He has had his blood drawn at least 35 times since we have been here.  
• He has had 2 bone marrow biopsies.
• He has had 6 lumbar punctures with chemotherapy.
• He has had 1 PET scan.
• He has had 3 chest xrays.
• He has had 2 head CT's.

I could probably list a lot more stuff but that's enough I think.  Knowing numbers and facts and data helps calm me so listing these things isn't meant to overwhelm, just to inform.  

Tuesday was a very long day; we got at MDA at 6:45 and didn't leave until nearly 10 that night.  

We are hoping to learn some news by the end of the week about whether or not the chemo is working.  We've learned that tests results can, and often do, take much longer than they should.  So we may not know anything until next week.

Chris continues to need blood and platelets often and his low counts leave him with little energy.  However we did venture out to a movie recently, Tron in 3-D on and IMAX screen.  Chris has been wanting to see Tron since it came out and neither of us had seen a 3-D movie before, it was fun!  It felt good to do something "normal".  That was our first public outing together excluding hospitals, cancer centers, and grocery shopping in something like 2 months.  We are hoping to visit the art museum as his energy level permits.

I know I mostly stick to the "facts" in this blog and don't go into much about how we are feeling, that's just my nature I suppose.  We have our good and bad days, it's a hard experience; we miss our little boy more than any words could even begin to describe.  The days we have to spend at MDA 8 or more hours tend to wear us both down pretty quickly.  But in the midst of all of this I still feel quite lucky.  We have the support of so many family, friends, and strangers.  I know there are others going thru this horrible journey with cancer that aren't as lucky and have to do much of it alone.

His counts: