One of Charlie's favorite things to do at clinic is stand on the window sills and look out of his perch on the 7th floor at all of the construction across the street and the cars passing by. Chad snapped the picture after his last chemo treatment during the Interim Maintenance Phase. His ANC was fantastic so he was given 180mg of Methotrexate up from 30mg when we started. The visit was more of a learning experience for Charlie. We worked with Tommi, the Child Life Specialist to help prepare him for having his port accessed. Tommi uses a doll to step through the process with Charlie in hopes that it will calm his fears when it is his turn. We are going to try a few different things moving forward with his port accesses. We ask him "Are you scared? or does it Hurt?" this way he can get over the scariness and become a brave guy. The other things we are going to do is only have Nurse Sally access his port for some continuity, give him warning by counting to three and giving him choices like "Do you want to sit in Mommy's lap or Daddy's?" to give him a little more control over what is happening to him. With practice, I think these techniques and working with Tommi will help make port accesses less stressful for him.
For now we have a 10 day break from treatments and begin the highly anticipated Delayed Intensification Phase. Charlie will go back to weekly visits (if not more) and will have a few new medicines added to the list. I'll post more about this next phase after the first treatment on August 2nd.
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