Alex has been coping amazingly well, after his first session of chemo he felt a bit nauseas for a few days, had a headache and general chemo brain for a while but on the whole he was well enough to eat etc, managed to go out with his friend a couple of times and manage a band rehearsal!!
Yesterday he had his second session of cycle 1. We managed to have his blood test and see a Dr in the morning (he has put on a bit of weight - been giving him a high protein/high fat diet while he feels like eating) and then they phoned us to go back when his drugs were ready. All went well apart from a bit of pain in his vein when it came to the final drug but they managed to sort this out by putting a heated pad over his arm and slowing the speed of the infusion. Last time Alex was the only youngster in the treatment room but this time a lovely young girl (26 and has an 18 month old little girl) came in and sat in the chair next to his - she also has Hodgkins but it is stage 4, she only found out she had it when she fell off a horse and they did an x-ray!! She has a grapefruit size tumour in her chest, has had ABVD x 10 and is now coming to Marsden for a different regime and will have to have a bone marrow transplant too. Alex is so lucky he caught his early and is so far so good on the ABVD as she had all kinds of reactions to it.
He felt ok last night just a little bit of a headache. This afternoon he and two friends got a train up to London to meet another friend, sent him off with a goodie bag - water, hand sanitiser, ginger nuts etc and made sure he had his cards in his wallet & his mobile. So glad he felt well enough to go - he was very red in the face (was the day after chemo last time too) but said he didn't feel that bad apart from chemo brain! Anyway they are on their way back now so will see how he is when he gets in, he has to give himself the injection again tonight so that should be fun. Trying to get him to drink lots of water as I'm sure that helped last time. Anyway onwards and upwards.
