Predictably Unpredictable

Henry’s course of chemotherapy has mimicked the last one in all the good ways. We’ve only had to deal with a shadow of the steroid wakefulness issue from the last time. Last evening Henry was up until about 11pm - which is much better than 3am – and up at 7:30a or so with the usual interruptions. That left Tara tired, but functional, and Henry cranky but reasonable. His stamina today was notable as was mine having had a solid 10 hours of sleep the night before. That endurance ran out at about 6pm at which time he fell asleep while I was talking to Tara on the phone.

We did have an exception to our now routine stay today. We’ve had to begin some of the follow up testing to determine any negative effects of the chemotherapy. The other day we collected Henry’s urine over the course of 12 hours to ensure his kidney function. Today we had the hearing test. He’s clearly hearing normal sounds well, but the immediate threat is to his high-frequency range. The results of this test also become a data point to account for in his high-dose therapy. One of drugs, Cisplatin, is from a family of drugs that has this ototoxicity. We expect to use another from the same family in the next round called Carboplatin in a dose an order of magnitude greater than the current one. Obviously this poses a greater threat to his hearing should the tests show him to have any loss.

He handled the test well - far better than the baseline done in October. He’s since listened through earphones to music and we prepared him by comparing it to that. We sat in a room that looked like a recording booth, while the technician on the other side of a window spoke through earphones to Henry, asking him to raise his hand, touch his cap, or reach his eye. He followed all of her directions perfectly. She did a follow up test to confirm the results and then gave me a summary. It seems Henry has lost some of his high-frequency range of hearing.

Because of his early bedtime and the pending dose of steroids, I expected Henry to be awake in the middle of the morning. Predictably unpredictable, at 12:20am he was awakened by the nurse and couldn’t get back to sleep. We’re currently watching ‘Toy Story’ and eating cheese. Mommy – can you bring more cheese sticks?