Leukemia: Just a Fork In Our Road: Happy Halloween!!

Austin has enjoyed his break from Chemo this week, and we have enjoyed not having to drive to Salt Lake. Austin is finishing Consolidation and will start the next phase on November 2nd, provided his blood counts are high enough. It has been a pretty good week. The biggest complaint Austin has had is constant nausea from the 6mp medication that he has to take every night. I talked to the Oncologist at Primary's and she suggested adding Benadryl in between the Zofran that he is already taking. I think this is helping a little, although Austin is still very nauseous every morning and for the most part he won't eat breakfast and eats very little the rest of the day. I was really becoming concerned about the possibility of dehydration but he has managed to drink enough to avoid that. To add insult to injury, his teeth are very sensitive to cold right now and he won't drink anything below room temperature, and that has to be with a straw. I have been searching St George for a sensitive toothpaste that is not mint flavored. Since Austin was a baby, he has had an intense aversion to mint flavor. This includes everything--candy, ice cream, and especially toothpaste. At about 18 months old I remember giving him a bite of mint chocolate chip ice cream with the result being he promptly gagged and threw up. So needless to say, the availability of a non-mint toothpaste that is for sensitive teeth has been a challenge. If any of you have any suggestions, please let me know!

The other challenge this week has been the never ending cold that Kevin and I managed to find and invite into our systems. We have been miserable and I was just sure that Austin was going to get sick and miss out on trick-or-treating. Maybe it's because I have been bathing him in Purell or more likely it's a result of my constant praying for his health (I'm pretty sure it's more like whining and begging at this point) but so far Austin has evaded the plague.

So the Halloween festivities commenced. Austin chose to be a Ninja (big surprise since it has to be a costume that involves a big sword), Madison a Genie, and Jaxon chose to be Thor. We had a great time Trick-or-Treating and being with friends.