A Slow Start, But Gaining Momentum

Last night, before bed, and again at 2 a.m., Brendan was sick to his stomach.  It seemed like every time he got up, he threw up.  So I gave him anti-nausea medicine before bed, at 2 a.m., and he stayed in bed this morning until I had given him more through his feeding tube.  Getting up slowly seemed to help and he has been able to keep the rest of his overnight nutrition supplement, his medicine, and one small pancake down this morning.

 Since the doctor wanted his goal feeding (900 ml) met right away, it tripled his feeding tube nutrition overnight.  I watched him carefully all night to see if he was tolerating it alright.

 Once he was up, he was feeling pretty good.  He looked for a movie to watch tonight, and played a few minutes of ping-pong.

And ate a little breakfast.  (1 out of 3 is better than nothing. . .)

After breakfast Brendan took Zoe for a walk.  He did great and walked quite a ways.

After a bath and teeth cleaning routine, we were off to radiation.

Today was prize day at radiation.  Last week Brendan was too sick to care about getting a prize so he picked out 2 pairs of gloves today.

Hats have become interesting to Brendan since he knows he is going to lose his hair in a month or so.   It's just hard to find a great guys hat.  He checked out all the ones they had in the closet, but didn't find one he liked.

Every day Brendan dreads radiation.  It makes him feel tired and often gives him a headache. Today we talked about what he likes about it.  "The people there . . ."  That was all he could come up with.  We talked about what he could get Lark, Rosemarie, and Carli for Christmas.

Lark told me that Brendan does better than most adults at holding still and dealing with the radiation. Rosemarie told me the other day that she thinks Brendan just sleeps through most of his treatments.  They usually have to sedate young kids, but have had a 4 year old that can hold still enough without sedation.  The youngest child that Lark has worked with was 11 months old and had to be sedated every day for 30 days.

We headed over to Primary Children's for school, and Brendan got a bag of chips for lunch.  He felt bad that something that used to be such a treat didn't taste very good.

Time for school. . .

The new School Zone.  They opened the first week of October.

Picking out a book for Brendan to read the next couple of days.  It was hard to find a book he hadn't already read.  He finally found a Gary Paulson book called "Liar, Liar." All books from here are given to the kids to keep.

Time for a little extra nutrition.  Brendan prefers it through his feeding tube now.  He's mentioned several times how glad he is to have it.  It bypasses his taste buds and the sores forming in his throat.  But the nurse at radiation yesterday told him he still had to swallow several times a day.  "Use it or lose it," she said about the muscles in his throat.

Tonight Brendan watched a movie and relaxed.  He is still struggling with nausea, but has more energy, is more active, and his face is filling out and he is not looking so thin anymore.  Hopefully,  he can get another full night of food supplement tonight.  We were able to move his radiation up to 10:15 a.m. tomorrow so then we can head home for a 4-day break from radiation.  Brendan's really looking forward to that!