An Eating Machine

A happy, hungry boy

Outside of a rough night sleeping, Carter settled in to CHOC fairly well today. We did have the same room as our previous stay and Carter got to see a number of familiar faces, specifically the wonderful nurses. We always miss the comforts of home but now have to revert back to “CHOC-mode” for the next few days.

As it turns out, Carter’s fever doesn’t seem to have materialized into anything too worrisome. The doctor’s think the anesthesia from his MRI likely caused the spike in temperature, along with a very lengthy, busy day. Carter’s temperature settled to normal levels throughout the night and his initial blood work had nothing abnormal. We’ll wait for a few blood cultures to be certain but the preliminary plan is to move forward with Round 2 of chemotherapy tomorrow. Last night we were very concerned about the potentials of an infection and having to put off chemo for a few days. This does not seem to be the case and we’ll continue with our road map of chemotherapy. We do continue to battle a form of rash around Carter's Broviac site. Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve been trying to adjust some medicines, add ointments, use alternative tapes and cleanser but have been unable to nail down a true cause. Fortunately, this rash seems to have nothing to do with Carter’s chemotherapy regimen but it’s a little irritated and itchy for Carter at times. We’ll continue to try to solve the rash mystery in hopes of a solution.

Big news…Carter was an amazing eater today! He had such an incredible appetite and probably ate more today than his entire stay at CHOC during our first visit. Here’s the breakdown of all the things he nibbled on today: pancakes, fruit loops, mac & cheese, pizza, chocolate cookie, oranges, hamburger, french fries, yogurt and lots of water. We were thrilled! We are hoping our next round of chemo will not slow his appetite as it did during the beginning of Round 1. Luckily we haven’t had any further discussion about the NG tube (feeding tube straight through the nostril into the stomach) and frankly, maybe Carter finally got wind of what a bummer it would be to have this hanging from his nose…