Grappling with life after treatment
This is a hard post to write, but it’s important to me to face our reality head on. After Long Term Maintenance wraps up – hopefully in spring of 2022 – Wes will hit...
Category: Treatment
Miles to go…
As each treatment phase ends and another begins we receive the next “roadmap” – a calendar of the procedures and meds he’ll be getting. In general, we have a broad understanding of what’s to...
Delayed Intensification
Having a few weeks off of treatment has given us a much-needed break to spend time with Wesley and our new baby Ruth. I had high-hopes for all the things we’d do, and get...
Out with IM, in with DI
It’s been a bit since I’ve posted an update about Wes. Two weeks ago we were grateful – and a little surprised – to all be together for Ruth’s birth. A few days later...
The laws of physics conspire
We can’t be in two places at once – so says the universe, and it seems to be true because there’s no law I’d rather violate than this one. My extremely pregnant wife is...
Toxic toddler
Chemotherapy is the process of delivering just enough poison to cancer cells without killing everything else; the therapeutic drugs Wesley receives are highly toxic, and the rest of his medications are almost entirely devoted...
The fever protocol
As I write, we’ve been on fever watch for the past day or so and are hoping for everyone’s sake that his temperature stays below 100.3 for the next five hours. When we’re not...
Remission isn’t what you might think
Along with relapse, remission is one of the few technical terms that most people are familiar with regarding cancer, but it’s also the most commonly misunderstood at least as far as acute lymphocytic leukemia...
Why “high risk”?
Last night we returned home – a day early – from Wes’ first round of interim maintenance (IM), the third of five phases of therapy that began the day he was diagnosed, and will...
Interim maintenance begins (eventually)
Today officially marks the end of Consolidation in Wesley’s treatment plan, which began when he was officially declared in remission at the beginning of December. The past couple of months haven’t been easy on...