Round 2 - Cooperation

August 3, 2011

We started our second round of inpatient chemo today and things went much smoother with Drew cooperating more. He did all of his vitals without fighting, which again is a huge accomplishment. Usually he has to come fasted because he gets put under anesthesia for the spinal tap, so it helped that we were able to get his intrathecal (injection into the spinal canal) chemo done last week, so it wasn't so much all in one day.

We planned on having a 48 hour extended EEG (electroencephalogram) done while we were here at the hospital this time. An EEG monitors and records brain activity. Drew's neurologist has had him on seizure medication since his surgery because he said with the irritation from the surgery itself and how the tumor was pressing on the brain, there is a 50-50 chance over the next 3 months that he could have a seizure. Since it had been so hard to get him to take any medication and we have been having to do it IV, we really wanted to know if it was absolutely necessary. If everything looks ok on the EEG, then we may be able to get him off the seizure meds. What we didn't know was that while he was hooked up for the 48 hours, he wouldn't be able to leave the bed! He did great getting all of the electrodes hooked up and since he hasn't been feeling that great anyways, it hasn't been a huge issue with him wanting to leave the bed.

Getting the EEG electrodes put on.

Look at all those cords! His head is wrapped to hold all of the electrodes in place.

August 4, 2011

Thank goodness for legos! He has been really into them lately and they have kept him occupied while he has to stay in bed and while he's feeling sick and doesn't want to be up and about much. He did such a great job with everything yesterday that when I had to leave to go home, I told him I would stop and get the lego sets he has been wanting. I made it to Toys R Us with 3 minutes to spare and got a couple of the alien spaceship sets. We built one of them today.