He took it like a MAN!

Logan wanted Eric to take him to his appointment today so I hear from him that Logan did GREAT with his leg shot (even though it was a BIG needle! : ).

He Keeps Going and Going and Going...

Logan is still handling the chemo treatments well. He has been sleeping through his appointments (as soon as they give him Benadryl he's out) and he's like the Energizer Bunny the rest of the day long.

Tomorrow is the big day for the leg shot and Logan is stressing about it. We'll let you know how he handles it.

Here We Go Again

After a wonderful family weekend (with NO hospital stays!!!! - what a nice change) we are heading back to the doctor's office for another round of chemo. His appointment is for 10:00 t0day and this round will feature the 3 day treatment cycle, 4 days off, then 3 days again. This is a new regimen for us and will also include a new chemo drug that has to be administered as a shot in the leg (that will happen on Wednesday) but NO MORE BACK SHOTS!!!! : ) We'll keep you all updated on how Logan handles this new chemo treatments in the weeks to come.

How We Spent This Beautiful Day

What a WONDERFUL October day we had today at HOME!!!! We played hooky from school (sorry Mrs. Nicholson : ) and rode bikes, played in the backyard, and dug in the rocks. Logan and Amanda found some big rocks and were stacking them up, then I brought out the water hose and we made a fountain! Here are some photos of our wonderful day.

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I took a bunch of photos trying to show you Logan's backpack. He went home on 24 hour iv antibiotics and he has an iv bag and infusion pump that he is hooked to all day and night so this backpack is now his new best friend. He's still getting use to taking it everywhere. I noticed that he puts it down often, only to pick it back up and put it on. Hopefully it won't bother him too much. We're just happy to be home and mobile!

I failed to get any photos of my friend Megan with the kids. She came for a visit on Sunday and was able to take Amanda to the park and hang out with her at home while Eric was at work and I was at the hospital with Logan on Monday. She also stayed to play with us on Tuesday morning and into the afternoon. THANKS SO MUCH MY FRIEND!

Home.

Not a minute too early, Logan is now home.

Double Finger Crosses

Logan is feeling better and we're hoping that the fever doesn't come back. All the blood cultures are coming back negative (so far) but they have to grow out for 48 hours before it's official (which will be 10:00 tonight). If the fever stays gone and there's no growth in the cultures, he can go home tonight (or tomorrow morning if he's sleeping). The official word right now is that he had an unidentifiable virus that was causing his fever. His white blood cells are doing great right now so he is able to fight off his own infections and heal himself. Logan's classmates and teacher are all doing double finger crosses for us! Thanks friends!

So Far, No Growth

So far the cultures are not growing anything however the urine they sampled had a high pH and they suspect bacteria. We won't have any more news until tomorrow. Right now he's on iv antibiotics.

Prelims

For the night owls (or early birds), initial tests and current symptoms are promising. No real signs of flu, and his counts are starting to come up. We will have more information when we talk to the attending physician in the morning, so stay tuned. I am hoping for a garden-variety bug that clears quickly.

Sick Boy

Logan and Eric are heading back to the hospital tonight. His fever is back with a cough. I just hope he didn't catch the flu from our last visit. Hospitals are nasty, germy places : (. The doctors will do all the tests again tonight and it will be a couple of days before we get the results but we'll know sooner if its the flu.

New Blood Counts

White Blood Cells = .7
Hemoglobin = 8.0
Platelets = 46

All is well.

Schedule for the Next 2 Months

We just got back from another doctors appointment for a CBC and we asked a few questions about the up coming chemo. Here is Logan (and our) schedule for the next two months.

Next week - recovery and more blood work on Monday and Thursday

October 26 and 27 - chemo drug Ara-C twice daily &
October 28 a new drug, Asparaginase, injected into the leg.
(only 3 days long - wait 4 days - do cycle again)

November 2 and 3 - chemo drug Ara-C twice daily &
November 4 - Asparaginase injection.

Recovery time (and possible hospitalization) of two weeks.

November 23 and 24 - chemo drug Ara-C twice daily &
** Week of Thanksgiving : ( **
November 25 - Asparaginase injection.

November 30 and December 1 - chemo drug Ara-C twice daily &
December 2 - Asparaginase injection.

Week of December 7th - expect hospitalization.

THEN HE'S DONE!!!!!! : )

He'll have a bone marrow biopsy right before Christmas (or right after if that fits our schedule better) to confirm that all cancer is gone. Some time in Febuary he'll have is Hickman catheter removed (HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LOGAN). Then just CBC blood work every month to monitor and make sure that nasty cancer doesn't come back.

A Sigh of Relief

I'm breathing easier now that we've been home for almost 24 hours without incident. This last round of chemo did a number on our boy, but so far today he's doing well. No crazy temperatures to send us back to the hospital, but he has sores in his throat (where before he had them in his mouth) that are bothering him. He's still eating okay for us... just nothing crunchy and usually in small doses. I guess time will tell if we got out of the germ factory called a hospital without the flu... which someone had RIGHT NEXT DOOR! We were two nervous germ-a-phob parents let me tell you!

We have spent the day converting a corner of the play room into a fabulous study corner for Logan and Amanda and the kids have rediscovered some old toys in the reorganization. I only hope that this winter goes as smoothly as today has gone. Thank you all for your finger crossing, wishing and hoping for us. : )

Near Miss

It was close, but we made it out of Wesley Hospital!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HIP HIP HURRAY!!!!!!

His temperature at 4:00 today was 99.6 but they let us go because it wasn't at their magic number.
FINE BY ME!

We may be back in there tomorrow, but we're home tonight.

Blue Sky on a Cloudy Day.

There is a chance that Logan may be dismissed from the hospital this afternoon!!! His last recorded temperature was yesterday at 4:00 so if he still doesn't have a temperature this afternoon they will let him go home on antibiotics. Yesterday, they changed his antibiotics thinking that the two he was on wasn't cutting it for his urinary tract infection and was the reason for his continued temperature (while we all know that it's just neutropenic fever). No matter the reason if it gets us home, I say! Check back this evening and I'll post if we do indeed make it home. COME ON LOGAN!!!! KEEP THAT TEMP DOWN!!!!! GOOO LOGANNNNNN!

DARN THIS FEVER!

Logan spiked another fever this afternoon so add on TWO MORE DAYS to our stay. : (

Maybe Tomorrow

If Logan can stay fever free we'll be able to go home tomorrow late afternoon. His sores in his throat are worse, but manageable with Popsicles and Tylenol. He is hanging from the rafters so we are SOOOO ready to go home.

Blood counts - white blood cells made a very small jump to .5, Hemoglobin up to 9.0 thanks to his transfusion. Platelets continue to drop... down to 35.

UTI and Blood Transfusion

The urine culture came back that Logan has a urinary tract infection and they are attributing his fever to that. This is good news for us since the doctors keep him in the hospital longer if they can't find a reason for the fever (and he's not feeling any pain from that).

We still need to wait for all the other blood cultures to grow out to confirm that he doesn't have bacteria in his blood. His hemoglobin dropped to 6.7 so he will be getting a blood transfusion today. His white blood cells came up slightly from yesterday to .4 ( 5.0 to 15 is normal so he still has a long way to go before he can fight infection on his own).

Update on his fever... he just measured 100.7 which will probably set us back another 2 days being dismissed. Looks like we'll be at the hospital for Amanda's 4th birthday. We'll have to make it up to her after Logan is dismissed.

Still Feverish

Still no word on if the boy has an infection, but he's on antibiotics as a preventive measure. He is feverish as well so at least 2 more days in the hospital... probably more.

Transfusion Last Night

It was discovered last night that Logan had blood in his urine and his platelets had fallen to 4 so he was given a transfusion over night. We are still waiting for the results for the cultures and chest x ray this morning. We also haven't had the update from his latest CBC, but since his lips are white and he's cold all the time I would imagine he's low on red blood cells too. More info will be posted as it becomes available.

Back On Hospital Time

Logan is back in the hospital tonight with a fever. As usual, we won't have any test results until tomorrow at the earliest. We'll keep you all posted as new news becomes available.

Blood Counts

Red blood cells are low... 7.9 but no transfusion until he falls below 7.0. Platelets are low as well at 24 but Dr. Rosen doesn't transfuse platelets unless he is having active bleeding because he can only get so many platelet transfusions before his body starts to reject them. White blood cells are 0.1 with no neutrophils so he has NO germ fighting abilities right now. This is historically the time when he starts running a fever and ends up in the hospital. His temp this morning was 99.5, but it doesn't count until it hits 101.0 so we'll just watch it over the weekend and hope for the best. His energy level today is not what it usually is so we're going to take it easy this weekend and hang around the house.

The More The Merrier

All is well in Wichita. Logan and Amanda are now home bound until after all the chemo is done and Logan can withstand the nasty bugs going around. After much deliberation, Eric and I decided that it was silly to send Amanda to school only to bring home the bugs to Logan so they are both here with me at the dinning room table each day doing their school work. Amanda has had the seasonal flu vaccine, but not the H1N1 and that flu is going around the Derby school district (too close to home). She has also had some classmates with out with various illnesses including croup which would be harmful to Logan. We are so sad to be missing the play dates with the moms group, but we'll be back in the swing of things before you know it!

In other news, Logan had a CBC blood test today and we'll get those results tomorrow. We expect that he will be low on platelets because he is having a lot of skin bruising, mostly on his arms and legs, but he also has bruises on his nose and right eye. He looks like this sister took him out behind the woodshed! Otherwise he is doing fine, eating like a mad man and running around like a monkey.

Homeschool

Home schooling in the Neal house has begun. At first Logan was not too excited about sitting down with me and doing school work when there were bikes to ride and toys to play with but after we made these nifty school work sorters he found some renewed interest and spent 3 hours working today! The green box (cereal boxes we cut and covered with wrapping paper) is his "in" box. He looks through it to see what he would like to work on next.

Here he is working hard. Notice the pencil behind his ear! : ) He is also a tongue chewer when he's concentrating.

The completed work goes in the animal box. His teacher is going to be coming to the house to work with him too and he's very excited about the idea of showing her all his completed school work.

His writing skills are improving everyday. Here's a short little video of him doing his school work.

Pumpkin Patch

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again! Today Logan is feeling great today so we decided to try the pumpkin patch again (with vomit bucket in the car just in case : ). The kids had a BALL! We took so many pictures and video that it's hard to decide which ones to post but here are the highlights.

Getting ready to go down the underground slide!

Amanda coming out the bottom! SUPER FAST!

Eric inside the slide, ready to go!

Logan was ready for a loud BOOM from the pumpkin cannon.

Paddling around the pond looking for the alligator. (Not to worry, it wasn't real)

I think Amanda got the best deal here! You guys petal and I'll sit and watch!

Giant Air Pillow!

Tree House "Secret" ladder.

LOVING the corn table! We need one of these for our sand! (The dogs keep digging ours out)

I think Eric had just as much fun as the kids.

Corn Maze.

The ONLY family photo we were able to get.

The kids didn't want to join us for the nice up close one.

Look at Logan go!

Birthday Bliss

Happy Birthday to Logan's DADDY! We treated Eric to ice cream sundas at Braum's. I forgot to take my camera of the ice cream faces, but suffice to say, it was mmm-mmm good!!! It's a good thing that Logan is feeling better tonight. It sure would be sad to miss out on ice cream

Oh ya. I forgot to tell you the story! Today was supposed to be a fun day so we packed up the car and were heading down the turn pike when Logan told me that his tummy felt funny. I guess my mommy brain should have interpreted that differently... perhaps into PULL OVER NOW! I'M GOING TO BE SICK, but no. I just gave him a drink and called it good. A few seconds later, something hit my windshield... from the INSIDE! My son, sitting the the VERY back of the car PROJECTILE VOMITED over 8 FEET!!!! (He's going to be a popular guy at college.) So far the official diagnoses is that it was caused by a reaction to the chemo medicine. He seems to be doing well right now with no other side effects. We are keeping the anti-nausea medicine flowing and life in the Neal home is once again crazy, loud, and busy. The only part of this that I can't understand it why it took 2 hours to clean up a mess that took seconds to create! YUCK! (good thing I don't have a weak stomach)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY... NO NEED TO UNWRAP THIS ONE! : )

No School For Now

I've been in contact with Logan's school nurse and it looks like there are some flu type bugs going around the school. Eric and I discussed the pros and cons of keeping him home verses sending him to school and we've decided that it's in his best interest to stay home for a while. For those of you not in the know, each round of chemo reduces his infection fighting abilities to zero, setting up an ideal breeding ground for any germ floating by. In his weakened state, the flu would become life threatening. Eric, Amanda and I have all gotten flu shots to help protect him from us bringing it home, but in a school setting it's uncontrollable. Logan's very sad to be missing his friends and activities, but hopefully he'll be back at it soon. On a positive note, tonight is the last dose of chemo for this round and he has done wonderfully with the new drug.