Chemotherapy vs Radiation....

Nobody likes CHANGE...

Tucker has been.... OK, really just OK. He cleared his last weeks chemo pretty quick and we were all happy and pleasantly surprised....well that's not the only surprise that Tucker had in store for us. We (Justin & I) have known about a possible change coming up in Tucker's treatment's for a little while now. Dr Afify has hinted more than once at a possible change in his "road map" that we may be making. Well the time is here and the decision has been made. Here is the run down.... I'll try not to make it to confusing, but to be honest I'm still a little confused by it. So.... as you read back in our previous posts about our super scary time with the chemo called ARAC (blood pressure dropped... lots of pain.. ect ect)... this change has alot to do with that... Tucker reacted so horribly to ARAC that there is big chance that if we do ARAC again we could be risking Tucker's life.
That just... makes me catch my breath every time i think about it. He was scheduled for at least 4 more rounds with ARAC..... and Dr Afify expressed her fear of possibly risking his life if we continue. Not good not good..... and since Tucker has the bone damage in his legs from his round with steroids, we can't do steroids again... and he was due for many more rounds with steroids, its one of the best meds to kill cancer cells in the brain. Well, because we don't want to do the ARAC and we can't do the steroids (without risking long term painful damage) we cannot continue on the treatment plan that he is currently on. Our "current plan" has lots more ARAC and steroids over the next year.... and Tucker's little body just can't do it. *sigh* BUT there is an option... at the beginning when they were picking Tucker's treatment plans they had 2 options, this treatment with lots of chemo and very minimal radiation, or plan B, not a much chemo but alot more radiation. Well, its a more accepted plan in this day and age to do as much chemo as possible first, have all that chemo kill the cancer cells, and THEN do a little radiation, if any, after the chemo is done. That's why we are currently on the plan that we are on.... with "plan B" as our back up plan. Well, the time has come and we are switching to Plan B. Plan A & Plan B up until this point in each plan was identical... meaning even if we would have started out with Plan B, we would have had all the same chemo's and steroids up to this point- at this point in the game is when the plans differ..... Plan B takes a different "turn".... this plan relays heavily on radiation treatment.
Humm...
Radiation...
OK, back at the beginning, they talked to us about radiation- because at the end of "plan A" we were scheduled to do very minimal radiation on his brain. So the radiologist came and talked to us and really put our fears to rest (see back to some of our earlier posts).... but now... OK, here is Plan B...
On June 28th we are scheduled to go start radiation on Tucker. The difference between the 2 plans was in Plan A, it was minimal radiation, more of a "preventive" treatment, not "the big gun" to kill the cancer. Well in Plan B, radiation is the "big gun" to kill his cancer so that means more intensive radiation. He will get high levels of radiation on his brain AND his whole spinal column...
yep... i said the whole spinal column....nope that was not on Plan A, that's a new change...
*sigh*
I hate change..
but its for the best, its what's best for tucker so this is what we need to do and without question this is what we will do.
I think my anxiety is that I know KNOW the chemo world... heck, I've been doing this since he was 4 years old. I know the In's & outs... what this means and what that means... but I've never ever had to deal with the radiation world...its just unknown... and everything unknown is just scary. But I'm sure here soon enough we will be pro's in the radiation world also. Oh, and he gets chemo also- the radiation is scheduled for a little over 3 weeks long, almost 4 weeks- of daily treatments.... and once a week he will come up to clinic for chemo.
*sigh* Its going to be a long month.

Justin and I came up to Tucker's appointment today to talk about all this, but Justin had to leave to go back to work before Dr Afify came to talk to me- go figure. But next week Tucker has a spinal tap & Dr Afify will be here to be our main doc and talk to us more about the changes.
Tucker is a bit of a grumpy bear up here today... so its been a little less fun than normal. He is currently sleeping in his chair with 2 pillows on his head- hey, i say sleep through the chemo if you can... it will just go by quicker... as soon as he wakes up we will get to go home. His counts look great & Tucker is going to try to attend Camp HOBE tomorrow.. its a summer camp for kids with cancer, he has gone every year since he was 5years old. I'll write up another post about that later though...
Love to all, Amber, Justin & Tucker