Round 4 begins…

Can you tell how excited I am about starting Round 4 of chemo?!

Well, we didn’t hear from CHOC until about 2pm today saying we should come to the hospital to be admitted for Round 4 of chemo at 3:30pm. They had to wait for people to be discharged so a bed would be available for us. We didn’t mind, it was nice to enjoy the morning at home. And us being admitted a little late in the day allowed Carter to see Grandma (Matt’s Mom) when she arrived from the airport this afternoon. She couldn’t believe the difference in Carter’s appearance and energy level from the last time she was here around his birthday. This was right before we went back into the hospital with para flu. It’s nice for us to hear that Carter is looking good.

We were concerned we would be sharing a room once we were admitted to the hospital. When we walked onto the oncology floor all the nurses and aides came running up to say hello. This is the advantage of spending so much time in the hospital; everyone knows Carter and our family. And the group at CHOC has been amazing to us. Our nurse for the day showed us to our room and came in to say we would not be getting a roommate because of the fact that Carter is on the transplant list, they want to be as cautious as possible for us. The words were about to come out of my mouth and they beat me to it, which was great. Also, they are having everyone who enters Carter’s room gown up as to not expose him to anything. We appreciate them taking the extra precautions. We had to inform UCLA that we were checked in and gave them our room number. They have to know where we are at all times.

The strongest chemo drug Carter receives during his treatment is called Cisplatin. This is the drug he has on day 1 of his cycle. They hydrate him for 4 hours, and then give him a drip for 4 hours. The drip will start around 11pm tonight, so hopefully he will sleep fine through it all. We had been concerned about the chemo wiping him out too much for him to be ready for transplant at any time in his cycle. They are tailoring it, so (hopefully) this won’t be the case. He is now receiving 75% of what he usually receives of Cisplatin.

At any time in the day, Matt and I could talk each other in or out of the decision for Carter to have a liver transplant. After calling UCLA today to make sure this was the right decision and that the surgeons really had enough time to review Carter’s scans, our minds were made up. This was not just a “decision”, this was the only option. It simply was not an option for Carter to have a resection, or they would have done it. We’re glad we called though, and had a chance for them to make it clear (again) that we are going down the right path. It’s hard to not question things when everything seems to be moving so quickly and it is such an important and permanent factor in our lives. We know we are in the best hands though. It just takes a while for it all to sink in.