Monday, May 31, 2010

Well Alex has been on maintenance chemo for four weeks now and things seem to be going well. His hair is growing in a bit and he seems to have no major side effects other than a constant queasiness. He is learning how to manage the nausea. He knows when he can and should eat and when the best time to exercise is. It appears that running in the morning makes him very nauseous whereas running late at night a couple of hours after dinner is fine. Certain foods set him off as well so he is learning to manage all of that. Right now he is still not at 100% dosage on some of the meds. We hope that as they increase the dosages, he won't get sicker.
He has also been working on his tan. He is so dark but looks so healthy.

The last Hong Kong chemo treatment was yesterday. All went well and we are so glad that medical team here at Queen Mary Hospital was able to follow the protocol as outlined by our US doctor. In the end the two protocols were not that different so it was fine. We will miss having to only pay $100 HKD ($13 USD for each visit) and having all of the chemo drugs and other medications included. There is something to be said for Public Health. We only had to pay for one particular drug ($3,000 USD) and the PET CT scan ($1,500 USD). The drug in the US cost us over $4,000 and the PET CT costs $6,000! So even when we do have to pay here, it's a lot cheaper.

This is a big week for Alex. It started on Sunday with a Baccalaureate Service and the Senior Dinner. It was a wonderful evening to kick off graduation week. Alex will present his Senior Project (getting fit after chemo) on Wednesday, speak at the Senior Community Gathering on Thursday and then finally attend the Senior Breakfast and Graduation on Friday. And in between all of this are some other celebratory dinners and gatherings. It is a fun time and we are all enjoying his accomplishments.

We all return to the US for the summer in a couple of weeks. Alex is looking forward to getting his Driver's License. Not sure I am ready for that. It's nice that we are starting to look forward to the normal things in life. There is still 16 more months of chemo but as always we will take it a day at a time.

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