8/30/05: We got a longer home stay than expected for Geoff's rash. We'll go back to clinic on Friday. He's getting so active and learing so much. It's great to see him developing so much.
8/27/05: Geoff and Eliza made it home Friday with the help of family and friends. What a blessing to be so frequently reminded how much we love to be home. Geoff's teeth are 1mm out on the bottom. He loves to chew on stuffed animal legs, and fingers.
8/25/05: Geoff was filmed to honor a man who has raised a lot of money in the area to "Stop Cancer" whose daughter had ALL 20 years ago.
8/21/05: Geoffrey got his line taken out successfully. They temporarily replaced it with a small line into his arm which will get replaced by something more permanant in a couple of days, they want to make sure that the infection is cleared out before they put the new one in.
8/19/05: We've been in the hospital since Tuesday. Geoff came down with a fever so we went in that night. His line kept growing cultures so the doctors plan to take his line out tomorrow.... sad. He'll have a new line put in as soon as the infection clears, but he'll have to take antibiotics by IV for a few days. We'll be here for a while since the plan is to proceed with chemo at the end of this admission.
8/15/05: We went to the clinic and Geoff's still not ready to proceed with treatment. Hopefully... Friday. Aunt Mary is in town and we're having a great visit.
8/12/05: Eliza's friend Cattleya sent us a whole bunch of paper cranes for Geoffrey, not quite a thousand, but a good start. Thanks Cattleya.
8/10/05: We're still at home. Geoff is fine, but he didn't have a certain test result done which he needed to have to proceed. Just as well. Phillip is busy with school, and Eliza was able to go to the Mom's Group while GGma stayed with Geoff. Geoff is really enjoying frozen strawberries.
8/9/05: We've been home for the weekend, Geoff kept hydrated like a champ. Grandma Chiu visited for a week from Utah, now she's off to Virgina. Today at the Clinic, pictures to follow, we found that we'll be on schedule to get treatment in the hospital tomorrow. Hopefully we'll be out on Saturday.
8/2/05: Geoffrey wanted to give everyone a big thumbs and say thanks for thinking about him. He'll probably come back home on Wednesday.
8/1/05: We went back. Eliza took Geoffrey to the clinic, but after about five hours they decided that he should be back in the hospital , so they went back to the hospital. He is doing fine, they are just worried about keeping him hydrated.
7/31/05: We came back home. The doctors couldn't find anything wrong with him. It was one of those things where if he hadn't been so sick we would have just stayed at home and suffered through it, but with his history it was probably better to go to the hospital and suffer through it just in case.
7/31/05: Geoffrey's counts are low and he is still crying a lot, he is getting fluids through an IV, so that should help some.
7/30/05: Geoffrey was really fussy last night and not nursing, he didn't sleep much (and neither did we), we are worried he is getting dehydrated, so back to the hospital we go, just in time for Eliza's mother to visit.
7/29/05: One more clinic visit, everything is going well.
7/28/05: Another clinic visit, this time for a fairly long IV treatment. Eliza and Geoffrey got to participate in a fire drill during the middle of that.
7/27/05: Went to the clinic to get some blood work done and get a shot. It has been a very nice week, almost like being regular people.
7/25/05:Being home is great. We had some worry that Geoff might be getting a little dehydrated but he's sweating a lot, a possible side-effect of his recent chemo, and still producing an adequate number of wet diapers. And if that isn't exciting enough, he's working hard on catching up with the toys we don't take to the hospital.
7/24/05: Home again, we should be home for about two weeks (with visits to the clinic) before we go back to the hospital.
7/23/05: Eliza has been in the hospital and Phillip has been at drum camp, so you guys haven't gotten any updates. Geoffrey is planning on coming home tomorrow, and possibly being home for a couple of weeks. We're heading into a stretch of treatments that can be done through the clinic or at home as long as Geoffrey is staying healthy.
7/20/05: Back to the hospital, Geoffrey got some intrathecal chemo, and they checked his bone marrow (he is officially in remission) and then we went upstairs to our room where he got some more chemo. A busy day.
7/19/05: We thought the plan was to go to the clinic a couple of times this week and then back to the hospital on Monday, but it looks like the plan has changed. They asked us to come to the clinic today with a likely admission to the hospital tomorrow. Good because it means his counts are up, bad because we have to go back to the hospital so soon.
7/18/05: We were able to stop Geoffrey's medications today, this is good news because one of them involved a needle and the other involved not sleeping more than four hours at a time.
7/16/05:As you can see Geoff is getting a taste for his toes, latch and all. Life at home is really great, except for the 2am medication sessions, and giving shots.... Today Eliza got to cook and clean and finish a crafty project her sister Mary, started with her in a recent visit. We got a copy of the recent Harry Potter book from Phillip's parents and look forward to this additional source of distraction.
7/15/05:The home care nurse came by this morning and everything after that is a blur. We're not sleeping as much, nor in as long stretches as we would like to be. Hence the naps. Thank goodness Eliza is able to nap and still sleep well in the evening.
7/14/05: We went to the clinic today so they could do some blood tests. Geoffrey's counts are up, which means that he is less likely to get sick. They will check his counts again next week and he will start his next round of chemo probably on Thursday.
7/13/05: Enjoying being home. It is nice to have everyone at home. Geoffrey has been enjoying it, we took him outside to play with his tree, and he has four different beds to sleep in. What a wonderful life.
7/12/05: We came home late tonight. Geoffrey has some medications that we have to give him every six hours. That means the middle of the night, not so bad, but then we remember that we have to get it out of the frig an hour before we give it to him, and that it takes a half hour to run, and then we have to unplug him and clean everything up. So much for sleep. At least we are home.
7/11/05: We got a pass again and went home. The Coopers came over again and we had dinner and watched a movie, almost like being normal people. When we came back to the hospital we caught the nurses moving all of our stuff into a different room. When they checked Geoffrey's blood they found that his white blood cell counts were too low and so they moved him into a private room. He is now in room 4514.
7/10/05: We got a pass today that let us go home for the afternoon. We may be doing this quite often in the future.
7/9/05: Our current roommate, Jake, is receiving the last of his chemotherapy this week. It is good to see that there is an end to it.
7/8/05: Early in the morning Eliza and Geoffrey had to move rooms so that somebody could move into the private room we had. We are now in room 24A. Later we found out that the people we had to move for were our new hospital friends, the Freemans. They have a baby who is just about two months ahead of Geoffrey on the same protocol, so they have recently gone through everything we are. Our friends, the Coopers, came over and we had dinner and hung out while Grandpa Porter watched Geoffrey (until Geoffrey decided he wanted his mom instead, then he hung out with us too). One of the doctors recognized them from when they were here with their daughter a couple of years ago.
7/7/05: They got something to grow in Geoffrey's blood cultures so they will definitely keep him until those clear up. He is doing great and doesn't have a fever anymore.
7/6/05: Well, we tried. We finally got home and unpacked. When we were getting ready for bed Eliza checked Geoffrey's temperature and he had a low fever. If he was a normal healthy boy we wouldn't have worried too much about it, but since he isn't we did. We called our floor on the hospital and they said he would get admitted quicker if we took him through the ER, so we did. We felt bad for the other parents with babies who were stuck in the waiting room while they quickly moved us through. Somewhere around 1:30am they finally got us settled back in our room. It shouldn't be a big deal, but better safe than sorry.
7/6/05: Geoffrey came home today. We'll be giving him his GCSF at home and taking him to the clinic every couple of days so the doctors can check up on him. It took an extra fours hours to escape because two of the people who could start his paperwork each thought that the other had already gotten it started. It is good to have everyone home.
7/5/05: Geoffrey's been cheating a little on his medication, taking it every 20 hours instead of every 24, so tonight he is getting his last round of chemo. Tomorrow he will get some GCSF which helps his white blood cells recover and then we go home as soon as he has two days of normal white blood cell counts.
7/4/05: Three down, two to go. Happy Fourth of July.
7/3/05: Amazing how boring this is, isn't it? :) More VP-16 and Cytotoxan, and then some Mesna to keep it from hurting his body any more than it needs to and then we wait until tomorrow.
7/2/05: Geoffrey started his chemo today, four more days and then maybe one more day of recovery and then we have a week off.
7/1/05: More of the same, another peaceful boring day at the hospital. Geoffrey's mouth sores are doing better, he has been nursing more, and taking a pacifier again. It looks like he'll start his next round of chemo tomorrow, five days of not too bad stuff and then we get to go home for a week.
6/30/05: Happy Birthday Eliza! And Happy Anniversary! Great-Grandma Porter watched Geoffrey and we went out to a nice restaurant.
6/29/05: We moved again, this time back to our very first room on the fourth floor, 28. Geoffrey likes this room because it has a big kidney on the ceiling.
6/28/05: I forgot to mention that we are in room 26 now, if you are trying to call us that will help. The doctors gave Geoffrey some naloxone which takes care of some of the effects of the morphine, now Geoffrey is Geoffrey again, not a zonked out little pile of baby.
6/28/05: We moved across the hallway. They are redoing the floors in our wing and so we moved to let them take care of our floor. Geoffrey has pretty much been asleep since yesterday, we've asked them to lower his morphine a little bit, but he is still crying whenever he approaches consciousness, so maybe the dose is about right.
6/27/05: Geoffrey has been pretty uncomfortable so they are giving him morphine now. He was supposed to start his next set of treatments today, but he has pretty bad mouth sores and they want that to clear up before they move on.
6/26/05: Eliza and Mary went to church today. Geoffrey got another transfusion. Another regular boring day in the hospital.
6/25/05: We meant to say that we will be home until Saturday :( Back in the hospital this morning, room 51 if you are trying to call us. One of the things that methotrexate does is kill cancer cells. Another thing that it does is kill the cells on the inside of your mouth. Geoffrey hasn't been eating as much as he needs to and is dehydrated. He is getting fluids and everything is fine, but we may be in the hospital until the end of next week.
6/24/05: We came home today. Phillip got the muffler fixed (Mother Chiu can tell you more about that) and Eliza was suitable impressed with how quiet the car is now. We will be home until Monday when we go back to the hospital for five days.
6/23/05: Mary (Eliza's sister) got here this evening. She will be here for a couple of days.
6/23/05: Geoffrey's Methotrexate levels are almost low enough that we can go home. The doctors say that we should be able to go home tomorrow. They say that it took so long to clear last week because he had been receiving another medication that slowed down the kidneys, but that drug is completely out of his system and his kidneys have recovered, so this week everything went much better.
6/22/05: Geoffrey finished his Methotrexate, now we wait. He has been really happy and giggly, it's a lot of fun.
6/21/05: Geoffrey started his Methotrexate. Last time it took about three times as long as it was supposed to for his body to clear it, so this time he is getting more fluids.
6/20/05: Geoffrey got checked back in today. We cheated and had dad go to the hospital to do the paperwork wwhile mom and Geoffrey hung out at home. When the paperwork was done, two hours later, we called mom and Geoffrey and they came in and went straight up to the room, much better. This visit is the same stuff we did last time, so it could be a while before we get to come back home. If you want to call us we are in room 10 now, at the same number as our last hospital visit.
6/19/05: We just kind of hung out today, back to the hospital tomorrow.
6/17/05: We had a wonderful day at home. Geoffrey has been enjoying not being plugged into anything. That blurry picture is him dancing :)
6/16/05: Geoffrey got an unexpected release today after having his kidney function tested. So, happily, we're home for a few days.
6/14/05: We've moved, just to the window seat, but it does give us a little more room and a window for Geoffrey to look out of. He really likes to watch the cars go by. If you are calling you need to ask for 18B instead of 18A.
6/13/05: The doctors are a little worried by how long it has taken to clear the methotrexate out of Geoffrey's system and want to wait a couple of days before they do anything more to him.
6/12/05: Same old, same old, except that he has a rash now too. He is supposed to start his next round of chemo on Tuesday so it looks like he is in the hospital until that is done with. Tuesday's stuff is the same thing he got on the 8th, so he might not be able to leave until next Monday. Eliza donated some blood especially for him a few days ago and he was able to get that when he got a transfusion today.
6/11/05: Still at the hospital, looks like another day or two. His levels are still high.
6/10/05: If Geoffrey's blood levels of the latest chemo are down by 4pm he gets to come home tonight, but it is likely that he will get another night at the hopsital and come home tomorrow. He's real cute.
6/10/05: Geoffrey's little friend Hailey moved in next to us, she was diagnosed with Leukemia when she was a little younger than Geoffrey and she is now about two months farther along in treatment than he is. Her parents have been a great help to us, letting us know what to expect and being there to talk about stuff. Great-Grandma and Grandpa Porter came by to visit, they have been in Utah for the past few months, so this is their first visit with Geoffrey since he's been in the hospital. Hopefully this afternoon we will be coming home.
6/9/05: Everything went well yesterday. Geoffrey has received almost all of the chemo he will be getting this time around. Later today they will start checking to see how much is left in his system. As soon as it gets down to reasonable levels he is free to go. The doctors say that will probably be tomorrow.
6/8/05: Geoffrey is back at the hospital today for his next round of chemo. They went ahead and gave him the transfusion. His counts were just above the minimum, but they were going to put his body through some stress so they figured they might as well get him as well prepared for it as they could. If you are trying to call us at the hospital, use the same number as last time, but ask for room 18A. We have many of the same nurses which is nice.
6/7/05: Geoff didn't end up needing a transfusion. His red blood cell count is low, but coming up enough. Eliza hopes to donate directly to him in the next few days. If anyone in the area wants to donate as well, it's always a good idea.
6/7/05: Geoffrey is headed back to the clinic this morning for a blood transfusion. He will be home in the afternoon. Maybe they will tell us he can stay at home until Thursday. Good news that he gets to be at home longer, bad news that he isn't ready to start his next round of chemo.
6/6/05: We went to the clinic yesterday and Geoffrey got cleared to go back to the hospital on Wednesday to start his next round of stuff.
First 4 months of Geoffrey Updates
Summer of 2005; First 4 months of "Geoffrey Updates"