Waiting For the Weekend

Thankfully, Tyler has only one scheduled radiation treatment left. They tried to schedule a Monday appointment for him and he told them he was done with the whole thing after Friday. I don't blame him... The toxicity has continued to build and he is feeling poorly again today.

One of the side effects that I didn't expect are these huge bouts of hiccups. They are getting more frequent and we can't find anything that seems to trigger them. But... he gets violent hiccups for a few minutes at a time throughout the days now. The nurses and doctors said that it is due to an irritation of the diaphram and is likely a result of the radiation treatments.

Tyler met with the radiation oncology doctor today and she says that his symptoms should begin to improve within the few days after treatment stops. I'm counting down the minutes until he starts to feel better. This is by no means the end of the crappy days, but we're ready for a break for now.

Tyler goes in for a blood test tomorrow and we are kind of expecting that he may need a transfusion. His platelets had dropped from 58 to 38 over the last weekend, so he might continue to drop a little bit lower. He must be over 50 platelets to get his lumbar puncture on Monday, so we are thinking he'll get a transfusion by Monday at the latest. If he dropped below 20, then they will likely give him a transfusion tomorrow too. The biggest risk of low platelets is the risk of bleeding. Platelets are the part of your blood that contribute to clotting and you have to be extra careful not to get hurt if your platelets are low.

The last day of radiation tomorrow, so we are counting the hours. 15 hours from now..., Tyler should be done with this phase!