We learned very quickly not to expect inpatient chemo to be the 3-4 day stay they told us about. Nolan would develop some complication every time that had to be resolved before going home. After the second round of chemo we realized he was developing a strange reaction to Cytoxan (also known as Cyclophosphamide, but I prefer not to spell that). After receiving the dose of Cytoxan Nolan slept for about 20 hours. I brought to the doctors attention that I had been unable to wake Nolan and he was not urinating at all. All This toxic chemo and heavy IV fluids was just sitting in his body. Nolan went another 10 hours of sleeping before they got really concerned and decided to do labwork. The labwork revealed Nolan's sodium levels were dangerously low. If they didn't get his sodium levels up soon, he would start to have seizures. They rushed him of to the PICU (pediatric intensive care unit) so they could gradually bring his sodium levels up. The picture above is him starting to wake up and feeling a little better. He has his Beads of Courage hanging in the background and his favorite Aflac hat sitting beside him :) He would continue to need sodium every time he got chemo to avoid having this reaction. He also lost his body's ability to regulate Potassium and Magnesium levels.
 |
| Nolan is feeling so much better now and wants to go home! |
No comments:
Post a Comment