Update

The last month has been a whirlwind of emotions. It was a long trying three weeks in the Oakland Children's Hospital. Cody's first round of Chemotherapy, 3 consecutive days of Chemo, began on Saturday April, 10, 2010. His Chemo regimen included Cytoxan, Doxorubicin, Epoposide, Ifofamide, and Vincristine. Since then he has been suffering from some of the many side effects of Chemo including, fatigue, nausea, mouth sores, and low blood counts. His hair has also started falling out already. Unfortunately, with his type of cancer he is getting more than the normal amount of chemo so the side effects are hitting him sooner and harder.

All of his blood counts have dropped since chemo. He has needed 3 units of platelets, those are the cells that help our blood clot. He had a reaction to the second unit which was really scary. He got hives and his airway swelled up so he couldn't breath. He also needed another unit of blood. Since Cody is undergoing such an aggressive chemo regimen any time he needs a blood transfusion will need Irradiated Blood. Irradiated Blood products are exposed to radiation to destroy the lymphocyte’s ability to divide. Patients with functional immune systems will destroy foreign lymphocytes making it unnecessary to use irradiated blood. Since Cody's White cells have dropped to pretty much nothing he really doesn't have an immune system to fight off anything. He is getting daily shots of Neupogen to help increase his white cell counts.

They have his pain and nausea pretty much under control now with medication. It has been a trial process of finding the right medications and the right doses to get it under control but he is now doing much better in the area of pain and nausea. Cody is such an amazing person. Throughout this whole process he hasn't complained much. He continues to be more concerned about those around him than he is for himself. He has said on more than one occasion that he is glad this is happening to him because he wouldn't want it to happen to anyone else. He has been home sick but he will be heading home Friday April 23rd.

They have been working on getting transfered to another hospital for the remainder of his treatments. Since this is such an extremely rare highly aggressive cancer it needs to be treated in a place that is familiar with this rare cancer. They are in the process of looking into places who are familiar with and have actually treated patients with DSRCT. As of now they have not made a decision as to where the next treatment will be, possibly Salt Lake Primary Children's for the next one to give them a little more time to figure out where the best place to be is. As far as when, well that all depends on Cody. They can't start the next round until his white count comes up. All we can do is take things one day at a time right now.