Update on Nicholas

Nicholas is on a protocol that calls for him to get chemotherapy every three weeks for twenty-one weeks, and beginning week four, chemotherapy every week day for five weeks. Surgery to resect the tumor comes at week thirteen.

He has been through four rounds of chemo, and all of the radiation. The chemo is not as bad as you might think. It takes three days to infuse, so that means a little more than three days in the hospital every three weeks. Twice he’s had to have doxyrubicin (AKA “red-devil” or “the red”). The red takes twenty-four hours to infuse, and he has to have two of them each time. It makes him a little queasy, but not as sick as it seems to make other patients. And it made his hair fall out. Not all of his hair, mind you. He still has some wispy bits here and there that he won’t let us shave. The red is photo-sensitive, so you have to shield it from light. That makes it seem so sinister. Read more