The Fourth Cycle Intermezzo
Thad developed a series of bacterial infections during the low point of his fourth cycle. So our hopes that he would make it through this round without any extra-curricular trips to the hospital did not come true. He has been in Yale-New Haven Children's since January 15th. There was a week long period in which every blood culture turned up a new bacterial infection, including one that was resistant to anti-biotics. All of that made this the scariest stretch of his treatment to date, but he recovered after the Infectious Disease team at Yale-New Haven bombarded him with anti-biotics. He should return tomorrow, Monday, January 28th. Once his immune system recovered from the chemotherapy, he was able to fight off the infections.
The Fourth Cycle
Thad returned to Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital on January 2nd for his fourth cycle. This is the first phase of the so-called "consolidation cycles." He receives a different mixture of drugs and has to have fewer lumbar punctures to his central nervous system, although he still has to get two more this cycle. The drugs this round include Etoposide and Cytarabin which he has never had before. These may have a new range of side-effects but he may also tolerate them better than the previous rounds of treatment. This phase is still very intensive.
Click Here for a Chart of Thad's Treatment Cycle
Here's Thad and his mother Helen Rozwadowski in the hospital.
Thad returned from the hospital on January 7th and entered the most dangerous phase of his treatment, the time during each cycle when his immune system (and everything else) starts to "crash." In each of the last two cycles he got an infection during this critical phase, but this time he seemed to tolerate the mix of chemotherapy drugs better.
Maren and I were going to be with Thad and his sister Meg that weekend, but we came down with colds and decided it was better to stay away from him. We hoped he'd make it through this cycle without an extra trip to the hospital, but unfortunately he had to go back into the hospital shortly thereafter.
We did spend the weekend with Meg, however. She insisted on making some drawings for a "book" for Thad, which form the background of this webpage.
