Tommy's 5th day at the Hospital.

Tommy started Chemo yesterday, boy was that a scary experience! To watch them shoot toxins into my baby's bloodstream, that was painful to watch. They do what is called an IV push where they, using the port-a-cath to access the veins, they slowly push the chemotherapy into the catheter then they'll pull back to make sure they still have blood return, so they know there is good blood flow. The nurse is all gowned up and has thick purple gloves on when she administers the chemo because it is so exremely toxic it could burn through your skin if it touched you. The scary part of that is they are putting that extremely toxic stuff right into my little boys veins-SCARY! Last night after the chemo, it was Tom's night to sleep here, we take turns to that one of us is getting some sleep every other night. He said that his pulse had dropped to 38bpm which is extremely low for a resting heart-rate even in a child. They had to hook him up and watch his heart for a couple hours last night.
Today he actually started feeling and acting a little more like himself. He hasn't gotten up, or walked since tuesday because it hurt his legs too much. Today we walked to the bathroom and wanted to stand a little more than normal which is a very good sign, it means that the chemo is working. The reason his legs hurt is because the leukemia cells are in the bone marrow, they were rapidly multiplying causing the marrow inside the bone to swell which would cause him pain. That is why for the last 2 months or so his legs have been hurting so much. If I would have only known it was leukemia and not growing pains, huh!
He is on a steroid called Dexamethasone, or Decadron which is a partner in killing the cancer cells and increases the effectivness of the other anti-cancer medicines. It's main side affects are increased appitite, weight gain, and fluid retention. Also it can cause irritability and mood/behavior changes, or what they like to call "ROID RAGE". Our friends have a little boy who is also going through this right now, they warned us about the "Mad Pills", but until you actually witness it you don't really understand. One minute he's fine and the next he is screaming at you for something so insignificant. It can be really funny or it can be exremely frustrating. He was playing Lego Star Wars today with Tom, and he was yelling at him the whole time! Tommy had Tom in tears from laughing so hard. Then he can go from yelling into crying, his hormones are so out of whack!
Tommy has had so many visitors and today was really the first day he was able to interact a little with his friends. He was a little mean Ashton, I'm sorry, it was the "roids" talking not Tommy. He really likes seeing people so if you feel 100% healthy we would love to see you. He wants to tell everyone thank you for all the wonderful gifts you have brought him.
Tonight was one of the scariest things, if not the scariest thing I have ever experienced in my life. Tommy had fallen asleep about 7:30 and was in a very deep sleep, also sedated on Morhine and Benadryl for the itching it causes. Tom and my brother Brian had just gone home and I was sitting down to write in my journal about 10ish. I was watching his heart rate because of what Tom had said happened the night before, I was a little peranoid about it. I watched his heart-rate drop from like 70's to 60's to 40's then to 38, and I was freaking out a little. I called the nurse and of course the CNA came in,, I respect her because I used to be one, but you are not a nurse. So she came in and checked his heart-rate with her stethascope because the pulse-ox was a little off all day. Then she called the nurse after me demanding her, the nurse came in to check it the same way and said it did sound low, but not quite that low about 60bpm. We decided to put on the little stickers that have wires, sorry forgot the name, to monitor it more closely. So while Tommy is in his deep sleep, I am trying to wake him up without making him mad. Tommy isn't the happiest person when you wake him up naturally, but with his "roid" medicine it is much worse! So I had woken him up, talking to him as nicely as I could and asked him if we could pull his shirt up to put stickers on him, and he screamed at me "NO!" So then the CNA was pulling his shirt up and he was getting more and more mad until he was crying and screaming. Then he started coughing, I was right by his face and he looked and me and was blue, his lips his whole face! He sat up trying to catch his breath and couldn't he was completely blue and was crashing. So I yelled to the nurse as he was turned around, "HELP ME! DO SOMETHING!" and he turned around and grabbed Tommy, shook him a little bit. Then he was still not breathing, the nurse and the CNA were in like panic-mode or something because I had to yell "Get the oxygen!" I owuld hav grabbed it but I was on the other side of the bed. They grabbed it put it on him and then there were a few more nurses and doctors in the room, I'm sure they heard me screaming. All the sudden I wasn't by him, I was freaking out thinking I'm going to lose my son right here, bawling I couldn't watch. They pushed the Code button so all the docotrs and nurses were in the room now, and now I am absolutely bawling ready to pass out. Finally he came to and wanted me because you can only imagine how scared he is to be surrounded by all these people and things. Right when he came to I wanted to pick him up and hold him forever, that was the longest minute of my life. They gave him an EKG to monitor the rythems of the heart to make sure it was funtioning properly. They found a little irregularity in his heartbeat but nothing serious. They brought it down to the cardiologist to look at and he said it looks fine.
I called Tom and told him to come right back up, so he brought my brother John up, Thanks Johnny, to help give him a blessing. It was a beautiful blessing and the spirit was very strong. I know that our Father in Heaven is watching him closely and is helping him through this.
I might be up all night watching his heart-rate because I am so freaked out now. It was quite an eventful day. Hopefully the rest of the night and tomorrow aren't quite as eventful! Please continue to keep Tommy in your thought and your prayers, he definately needs them! Thank you all again for all you have done for our family, thank you for your kind words of encouragement, keep them coming, we need those too!
We love our little Tommy with all of our hearts! He is seriouly "Tough as Nails" He is a fighter and he is going to win this battle! He is our HERO!