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.