Office Visit 4/19

04/19 12:45

ANC 2640

We saw Doc A today. Alan's red blood count was holding steady but it wasn't rising up as much as Doc A would have liked. Last time he recommended giving Alan his iron supplement in juice so it would be absorbed better. We are also increased the daily dose, which was good, since Alan was refusing juice. We had to put it in his chocolate Pediasure where it wouldn't absorb as well.

Doc A described the iron in Alan's body like a checking and savings account. Alan is absorbing enough iron from the supplements for his daily use (the checking account). However, he is not increasing the stores of iron in his body (the savings account). Doc A ordered a Ferritin test to check Alan's iron stores in his body. We'll continue the supplements and hope Alan holds at the current level.

It's less than two weeks until the Relay for Life. Our team's fundraiser is this Friday and we will be decorating luminaria for our fellow Infantile Fibrosarcoma families, our little friend Collin, and my cousins Ruth and Jean. Hopefully Alan will fit into his survivor's t-shirt - they don't have any toddler sizes and the smallest children's size will still be quite large on him. We are looking forward to seeing him walk for himself on the survivor's lap this year!

One year ago...

One year ago today, we heard the words "Alan has cancer". It's been an emotional roller coaster and even though we are out of treatment, there are still moments we get anxious.

Most of the time, we are happy to see Alan so active and settling into a normal life. He's eating a larger variety of food, getting into all kinds of trouble and having fun with his big brother. Thanks to all the counting we do during the stretches prescribed by his PT, Alan is counting to ten. Kevin thinks that's hilarious and they love to count together.

This week, we got his first class photo from Mom's Day Out and I almost cried. Life is slowly coming back to normal.

Office visit 4/5

04/05 10:19
ANC 8903

Another two-week followup with Doc A. The nurses all exclaimed how big Alan was getting. It's harder for us to see, but after a break it seems quite obvious to them. Alan was quite vocal today and the doc commented on it. He felt Alan's hip and torso and was quite happy with what he didn't find. We were too! Alan has been acting very cranky and though we know with 99% certainty it's teething pain (verified by the sight of a truly massive tooth coming in up top) and normal toddler tantruming, there's that 1% that remembers right before we diagnosed the cancer, when we explained Alan's pain and upset by teething or ear infections. It will take a while before we can accept the normal explanations of his pain and upset without some uncertainty.

The blood counts came back with a very slight not nearly adequate improvement in his red blood cell count. Alan is still anemic (though you wouldn't guess it from his activity level!). We'll do two things differently - increase his dose of iron supplement from 1/4 teaspoon to a full teaspoon and give it with juice (the vitamin C helps with the absorption of the iron) instead of milk (which blocks absorption). Hopefully this will send his iron levels in the right direction.

I mentioned to Doc A that tomorrow will mark the one year anniversary of Alan's diagnosis. He remembers it well because of the incredible size of Alan's tumor. It was nice to have another easy office visit and confirmation that everything is fine. We'll be back in another two weeks.