Lucas Chronicles: End of Induction

Tomorrow marks another milestone for Lucas.  It should be the official end of Induction or the first phase of treatment.  At this point the doctors anticipate that Lucas will be in remission and they will not find any leukemic cells in his bone marrow.  Some things that will happen tomorrow:

• Bone Marrow Aspiration
• Lumbar Puncture with Chemo
• CBC and culture blood tests
• Discussion of installing a port
• Physical Therapy
• Addressing the cough that has progressively gotten worse since his diagnosis

These are the major items that we will discuss tomorrow.  I will give you a full update as soon as I can.

Some things that have happened over the past week.

• Lucas has lost 75% of his hair. We have resorted to lint rollers to keep it off of him as well as us
• He is walking, but has extreme neuropathy in his legs.  It is very difficult for him to walk as he can't feel the ground beneath him which causes him to lose his balance.
• He is getting his appetite back and is eating more than just rice!!
• He helps us flush his PICC every day by giving me the syringes I need
• He has thrown up so much in the last month, he now knows when it is going to happen and will tell us 
• He has smiled and laughed more this week alone than he has in the last 6 weeks.

I have cried every day this week and now while I type this, the tears come again.  I hate to see my son in so much pain and would trade my life to make him better tomorrow and take away this cancer.  We still have a very long road ahead of us especially because of the Philadelphia positive diagnosis.

Thank you again for all of your thoughts and prayers.  The picture above gives you a glimpse of his happy times during the day.