Moments Matter

Weekly update:

Today marks the end of Day 9 of Staussen’s 28-day induction chemotherapy. He has been tolerating the medication fairly well, though he came down with oral thrush (fungal infection), severe diaper rash, and a widespread body rash a couple of days ago. The past few days he hasn’t really wanted to move around much. He had a large vomiting episode on Thursday, which is one of the major medication side effects. Speaking of side effects, he also has been a little moodier and his appetite seems to be increasing. His face and belly are beginning to fill out.

We mix his daily chemotherapy medication with chocolate ice cream and weekend antibiotic with vanilla ice cream. It used to take around 15 minutes to get him to take his “ice cream medicine,” but he now takes it fairly quickly. He still finds occasional opportunities to smile and laugh, despite the discomfort he feels from the medication.

His lumbar puncture procedure was uneventful on Friday. His cerebral spinal fluid was negative of any white blood cells. We are still awaiting the results of his Day 8 blood test that checks his initial response to the chemotherapy. We are praying that the results return showing an early clearance of the leukemic cells and a presence of minimal residual disease (MRD), which is a main indicator of chemotherapy outcome.

While Staussen was still partly sedated after his procedure, we got him to wear a batman costume with batman slippers without him complaining. Various staff members came by to perform some halloween activities with him. We also tried to get him excited to trick-or-treat here in the pediatric ward by showing him a trick-or-treating cartoon. It worked! At least for a few minutes...we went to the nurses’ station, and he picked out all the lollipops they offered him. We returned to the room and he opened all of his lollipops, licked them once, then put them to the side.

Sorry we have been slow getting more pictures up. We will get his birthday pictures and other pictures from the week up later today. While typing this update, Staussen keeps watching a Mormon Message over and over again. He has probably watched it 13 times this morning.

Here’s the link: https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2011-12-001-the-coat?lang=eng