October 13 - Weekend Update
Weekend update!
Hudson started his chemo Friday morning, with two chemo infusions on Friday and the same two medications again on Saturday. One of the chemo meds is called thiotepa and is actually secreted through the skin. So to keep Hudson from getting burns/skin irritation from the chemo sitting on his skin for too long, he had to have bed baths every six hours from Friday evening until this evening. He also could not wear his occlusive dressing on his central line, as this could trap the chemo and cause burns on that skin. Instead, the area was cleaned at the same time as every bath and covered with gauze and an ace wrap. You can probably imagine that waking a two year old up at midnight and 6am for a bed bath, sheet/linen change, and jammie change was not super fun. 😅 Even the daytime baths were not fun, if I’m honest. And all the laundry! But Hudson is a trooper and his nurses commented several times on how well he handled it all. 💪🏻
Hudson’s definitely feeling some of the other side effects, too, and we’re especially dealing with some nausea/vomiting and lack of appetite. He’s having a hard time keeping down his oral medications, so we’ve had to be sure to time those just after his IV antiemetics. Yesterday he only ate about 1/3 of a piece of cake all day, and today he ate 2.5 yogurt pouches and a few cheerios. He’s not wanting to drink much, either. Luckily he’s getting the fluids he needs through his line. If his appetite does not improve, they will consider doing an NG tube to help with nutrition.
Hudson has had some good spurts of energy over the last few days, and other than a couple of moments, he’s handling being stuck in the room or in the hallway with his N95 pretty well so far. He’s had a few special playmates this weekend, too, which has helped, because mom can get kind of boring. 😆 Overall, we’re hanging in there! Hudson is handling everything really, very well, all things considered. He’s a rockstar. 🤩
Stem cell transplant is scheduled for tomorrow around 4pm. We’re hoping all will go smoothly, and he’ll end up having fast and amazing recovery of his cell counts.
It’s really hard to see my baby so sick. To know that we’re pumping him full of poison that causes burns and kills his blood cells and makes him feel so so terrible… it just hurts. But this sweet boy. He is so strong. He amazes me at every step of the way. I know that God has big, BIG plans for him. So we continue to ask God to give us the strength we need to help Hudson through this storm. And we ask for Mary’s intercession, as she knows better than anyone the feeling of watching her innocent son suffer. And we ask for you all to continue to pray for him and for us. Your prayers mean so much, we are so grateful.
Jesus, we trust in you. 💛
