I wanted to let everyone know that the 8H9 went as scheduled today and was rather uneventful (despite the fact that we put a bunch of radioactive liquid into Eli’s brain and I’m not allowed to get closer than 3 feet to him all night)! It’s funny what we now consider to be uneventful events, huh? There was some question as to whether it would happen today or not. Eli’s platelets were low (21) yesterday and he needed a transfusion (they need to be over 50). His red blood was also low (7.6) and his ANC was .8 (needs to be greater than 1) which meant he had to get a G shot last night. This morning we got here a little before 8am and started the red blood transfusion. We then did another CBC to see what his counts were and everything was good. His platelets were 67, his ANC was 4.6 and his red blood was over 10.
We are spending the night in a hotel across the street tonight since Eli is too radioactive to be too close to anyone. Things will be much better by tomorrow and we’ll be allowed to return to the Ronald again. Staying “away” was one of the hardest parts of this evening. Eli kept trying to come up next to me and show me his drawings and wanted to be next to me all of the time. It was heartbreaking to keep saying, “Buddy, I’m sorry, but you have to take a few steps back, Daddy can’t be that close to you because you’re so radioactive.” At one point he started crying and said, “Being radioactive is hard, Dad.” www.videosofhope.com and sign up to use Animoto with a keyword of HOPE and they will make a donation to the Band of Parents!
We are also making headway with the Beat Cancer Today initiative at beatcancertoday.org. Thanks to everyone who has ordered tshirts. We have sold over 100 tshirts online already and it has only been online for 2 days! That doesn’t count the shirts that we have sold from the printable order form people can use to mail in with a check. I am proud to say that the Cyclone fans have purchased more shirts than the Hawkeye fans so far. Let’s keep that trend going! 🙂 If you prefer to pickup your order from someone whom you have made previous arrangements with, please use the “Add special instructions to the seller” section in the Checkout process and specify that you wish you pick up your order instead of having it shipped. When we see the note on your order, we will promptly issue a refund for the shipping charges! I’ll write more about what’s going to happen on that day as I know more. We did get word from the ISU Athletics Department this week that they will allow us to play a promo video on the big screen sometime at the game and that the players will be allowed to wear gold ribbon decals on their helmets and do photo opps. How cool is that? Thanks to everyone for your support of National Childhood Cancer Awareness Day and of course our Eli and his cancer battling comrades!
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