Charlie's Way or Daddy's Way - Day 11

It's the end of our first real week. That is, being at the house without the nurses to help do things for us. Charlie is showing progress in some areas, but not others. We had some minor successes with taking medications. He is given two choices, Charlie's Way or Daddy's way. Charlie's way involves lining up the meds in little cups, shot glass style and having him shoot them down. Daddy's way involves syringes and a lot of screaming. He has opted for Charlie's Way twice, but we had a set back the second time when he threw everything back up. He hasn't opted for that way since.

Overall Charlie is still in great spirits, he is just having a hard time keeping food down. This is our main concern for now, but we may get another med to help that. Yea, another med!

We did get some more great news yesterday. The nurse called us back with the results from his bone marrow aspirate (biopsy). His first draw in the hospital showed that his marrow was 65% cancer. This shows how early we detected the Leukemia since most kids come in at 100%. His draw from Wednesday showed 6%, so the chemo is kicking butt. The nurse said they look for less than 5% before they stop doing weekly biopsies on the bone marrow and that they will stop doing the weekly spinal taps. So coming up this next Wednesday is another bone marrow draw (hopefully his last), no spinal tap and then his chemo injection.

He is still not walking due to the bone pain from the leukemia. The doctors mentioned that this is pretty normal and hopefully by the end of our first month he will start bearing weight on his legs again. Angela looks pretty funny 7 1/2 months pregnant carrying around a 3 year old. Not sure how much longer she can keep that up. Her doctors were informed of our news and are already talking cord blood harvesting. Lifting Charlie and the chemo poses no threat to her, so that is good.

Hopefully the great news keeps on coming. It sure does sound like the thoughts and prayers from all of you out there are working.