Sick

Beckett has an ear infection in both ears and a sinus infection. I'm not sure how much, if anything, this has to do with the chemo suppressing his immune system. Yesterday he was sent home from daycare with a fever of 102, and today he barely had a fever at all. The pediatrician prescribed yet another round of antibiotics, about the third that he has had. The cold or fever isn't anything too much of a concern right now as his blood counts are still very high, but we worry about him being sick as the treatment progresses.

Yet Beckett continues to be his normal, cheerful self, even if his nose is running like Niagara Falls. Well, he has his moments of grumpiness, but they seem typical for a two-year-old. The chemo appointments themselves have been no big deal. This week and next week he is getting only the Vincristine, which means the appointments will be fast and relatively painless.

Buzzed!

We had a pretty good week. John took Beckett to his third treatment this week. It went well and this time he slept after watching some of Cars. It was another long day though as his labs needed to be redrawn. In fact, his chemo started about 1.5 hours late. Beckett has been doing so well with all this. It doesn't seem to be getting him down at all.

On Saturday we were visiting Grandma (Barbara). I told her that we were going to get Beckett a haircut to get the hair out of his eyes and she offered to do it. Skeptically remembering many "mom haircuts" I had received as a child, I figured we had nothing to lose. About three minutes later we were on our way to Supercuts where Beckett had his hair "evened out" which amounted to getting buzzed. We weren't going to buzz his hair until we found out if his hair was going to fall out, but... he actually looks pretty cute. I don't have a picture of the buzz cut because I can't find the camera at the moment. I do however have a picture of the pre-buzz cut that Grandad took.

Home Sick

Beckett woke up this morning coughing and congested, so I called a sub. We called the nurse practitioner at Stanford who suggested we take him to the pediatrician. I was a little hesitatant as his regular pediatrician is on maternity leave (Dr. Walker who we LOVE), but we saw a great doctor. She thought he had sinusitis so he got another round of antibiotics so we'll see if he is able to kick it. Of course, chemo compromises his immune system so it might take awhile.

He took a three hour nap when we got home and just woke up, smiling and happy. (Since Beckett had woken up ready to go at 4:15 this morning, I decided to avoid laundry and take one too.)

Then this:
He wanted me to turn on the lights on his toy truck (Hess truck--thanks grandpa Oscar!). I told him the light was broken (no batteries--which I didn't tell him). He looked at me and said "ba-ry" Now, how did he know that?

2nd Treatment

Cassie took Beckett to his second chemotherapy appointment today. Beckett did fine this time too, and apparently the only big trick is getting him to hold still for two and a half hours. He watched 10 minutes of every movie that they had on the TV system at the hospital, called almost everyone that he knows on the phone, read, blew his nose, and wiggled.

Trish Murphy, the Nurse Practitioner who works with Dr. Fisher (and Trish is amazing, by the way) told us that Beckett has an ear infection, but that he will just have to work through it, although it'll take a while because the chemo will sap his immune system. His blood counts today were good and there were no other problems. Beckett didn't even cry when they accessed his port.

We also heard from Trish that Beckett's MRI showed no change from early July. This is very good news, but not so good that we can stop the treatment. The tumor board at the hospital will review the MRI and we may learn more.

Beckett continues to be happy and still seems unfazed by the treatment.

IPod

Beckett has his own playlist on Itunes. His favorite song is "Song 2" by Blur. He even repeats the lyrics if you sing the song to him.
Song: "I got my head checked."
Beckett: "Checked"

He loves all kinds of music though and whenever he hears music from a car stereo he shouts, "Dance" and bounces up and down. He knows guitars, pianos, and drums and asks for music whenever we get in the car.

The other day, I was packing up my gym bag and he looked at me and said, "IPod." Now he likes to listen to the IPod. Luckily, in this picture, you can't see that he isn't wearing any pants.