round three
I left everybody hanging with a trip to the ER and absolutely no update.
So, um, sorry - he's fine.
Not FINE, but over the infection. And it turns out these might just be neutropenic fevers and there isn't really any infection at all - except that antibiotics always seem to fix it - so I guess the real answer is nobody knows.
Today we headed down to Rico's third round of chemo (and hopefully his last bout with the "red devil"). Here are some things we learned:
1) The red devil is actually a regiment for children. This stuff could take down a T-rex, and that's the best option for kids with sarcoma. It hasn't even really been tested in adults with sarcoma. They do use it for other types of cancers, but as far as sarcoma goes, there just isn't a lot of research. Twenty percent of childhood cancers are sarcoma, while one percent of adult cancers are - so they just have more experience using it on kids. Since childhood cancers only get 4-7% of the allotted government funding for all cancers, and sarcoma for adults even less, it's not like the information is pouring in on how well this stuff actually does it's job - or what other options there are.
2) Any idea how many men between the ages of 55-70 are named Richard? According to the waiting room at Mayo's' phlebotomy lab - approximately, hmmmm, ALL of them. The number of times Rico's butt left the seat, only to realize it wasn't him was about a dozen in a 15 minute span. And for the record, Richard Bannet skipped his appointment. They called his name for about ten minutes straight - they're probably still calling it for all I know. He ain't showing up.
3) The third round of chemo is kind of like a third kid. The first time we disinfected the entire house and cleaned the car before he left. He got an infection anyway. The second time we wised up and hired a cleaning person - still got the infection. This time we're like "it is what it is" and left the house in our pajamas with a sink full of dishes, no toilet paper in the house, and a half-eaten burrito in the passengers seat.
4) Panakooken in Rochester is closing. Not that we'd ever been before, but we went today and now Rico is mad that he didn't discover it before. We stuffed him full of oven pancakes and eggs benedict before he stops eating for the week.
In other news - Tiny sold treats with her friends at the soccer game and raised enough money to meet her goal of sending $1000 to the Sarcoma Foundation ($1007 to be exact). Thank you all so much for supporting her fundraising!
Kooka and the girls from Pinnacle danced and sang at the soccer game in honor of our awesome friend Alisa. She's never really gone, as long as we are together.
Punk is going spelunking. That's all I have to say about that. Spelunking
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