Help Cure Caleb- Caleb's Journey

Caleb has started his Int Maintence phase of treatment. His counts were met and he had no chemo hold, which is great. His bone marrow is recovering and producing on its own. Caleb had a pretty busy week. He had two golf lessons and is loving them. He's working on driving the ball and got a tour of the Metro golf course with Coach B. Caleb also got to play with two of his New Jersey friends that were in town, Valentino & Gianluca. Those three had a blast and were like the 3 Musketeers. He had his labs drawn on Monday and we had to wait what felt like hours to get admitted. Caleb even went up and sat with his nurse, Rosie, checking the computer for his results. He even called down to lab with her and said, "Where's my labs?" He cracks me up. We were put in room 4011, which is practically not even in the wing near the nurses station. We situated our room and they started his fluids for the day before his high dose.  Tuesday morning he woke up and had to

This week Caleb completed Consolidation Phase. That is his second phase of treatment. It was a pretty quiet week, no big, long trips to clinic. Whew! Only labwork on Friday & a 15 min IV infusion of his last chemo for this phase. I received his roadmap for his next phase. I'd be lying if I didn't say I'm nervous about it. ALL of this makes me nervous. I just get nervous hearing HIGH DOSE, INPATIENT, etc. That's what our next phase consists of. He's getting a chemo he has received before during his spinals, but now he is getting it through IV infusion over a 24 hour period. We will be spending every other week a  minimum of 3-4 days inpatient, which can go longer - depending on how long it takes to get out of his system. All of this is count dependent also, which means he need to make counts in order to get the chemo. If not, chemo hold for a week for him to recover. Each dose is count dependent. So really we can't plan much, just got to deal with everything

Another week of treatment is completed for Caleb. Once he starts the next phase, his chemo will be completed exactly three years from that date.  Caleb had a good week. He went in for labs last Wednesday and they wanted to wait till Friday for his transfusion, so we knew Friday clinic was going to be a long day - so we were well prepared. In the morning, he wanted to help place his "magic cream" on his port.  And we had NO tears during access or taking the needle out on Friday. He got a round of applause from his favorite nurses in the clinic! That day he received his chemotherapy and a Red Blood Cell transfusion. His platelets were low (in the 30s) and I remembered last time he got one then.  Dr didn't want to transfuse that yet, hoping his counts would start going up since he no longer had oral or shots of chemo that week.  Saturday I decided I wanted to become part of the bone marrow donor registry. I found a local drive at a school and asked my sister and niece to

Well it's been another week and we are winding down to the end of the Consolidation Phase of treatment in a few weeks. The past week Caleb had a break from the IV chemo since he can no longer get the LPEG due to the allergic reaction the first time. We still had to visit the clinic though for lab work and his chemo shot of ARAC. He did a great job that day accessing his port and even got a bead for teaching Nurse Jen how to access it! He really loves his beads of courage - that is such a great program. Friday was such a crummy day as far as weather. Our plans of going to watch the sunset were ruined - always another day though! Saturday we were able to get out with Aunt Jac & Caity to Celebration for some relaxing time by the lake and some Kilwins Ice Cream. Caleb loves watching people fish there and just relaxing on the steps by the lake.  Monday was a very special day for Caleb. He was able to go back to his school, see his friends & teachers and graduate with his cl