Today is Day 14 of Alex's Delayed Intensification phase of chemo. We went to the hospital for more chemo. It was quiet in the clinic so they were able to get things going pretty quickly. But it still took about 3 1/2 hours. One of the drugs takes an hour to give but before and after each drug they give saline to flush the line. The nurses are getting the hang of accessing his port. For all but 2 or the nurses there, they have never accessed a port. All the other kids have a central line outside of their bodies (a tube that is attached to their chest). Those lines have to be flushed every 3 days and the kids have to be careful when bathing and can't swim. Alex's port is all under the skin and only needs to be flushed once a month when not in use. They inject a needle that is attached to the tubing each time they need to administer chemo. Once he is done, the port is de-accessed and he doesn't have to worry about a tube sticking out of his chest. The nurses hate it. They are just not use to it. So it takes extra time to find someone to access and de-access him each time we are there.

His white blood count plunged this week and he is again neutropenic so we have to be real careful about infection. Trying to keep everyone in the house healthy. The steroids are once again making him hungry so he is eating much more frequently which is good. But we're having to be careful about foods now since the doctor says infections often come from a patient's own system and sometimes bacteria in the digestive tract and in the mouth. They pretty much don't want him eating fresh fruits, cheeses, etc. Everything needs to be cooked. He wanted bruschetta so we had to put the basil in boiling water to kill any bacteria. The tomatoes also went in the boiling water to make skin removal easier. We are learning to be creative!

Over the weekend several friends came over to visit and celebrate his friend James' birthday. It was nice to see Alex smiling and forgetting his troubles for a couple of hours. He also went over to his friend Dylan's house for a couple of hours. That was the first time he has been out in nearly two weeks. But now that his counts are down, he is pretty much homebound. Thank goodness for his computer and the internet. He watches movies and chats with his friends on the computer since TV in HK is so bad. We had no Olympic coverage here but Alex was able to watch some hockey, speed skating and ski jumping online.

Guess that's it for now. Will update you when there's something noteworthy!