Tyler has not felt well since he came back to the hospital on Thursday. He’s not having the “typical” chemo symptoms, thank goodness, but just in general feels drained and miserable. Ron’s recovered from his sinus infection, but now I have it, so I have had to stay away from the hospital since Saturday evening. This has triggered one of the worst cases of mother guilt ever!
Fortunately, Ron spent a really nice day with Ty on Sunday, and some wonderful folks have made themselves available to be with Tyler during the day until Ron can get there after work this week. So I know he’s fine and in good hands, but not being able to be there myself is simply the worst.
Tyler will finish this second course of chemo this Friday and then will begin a 20-day course of Sorafenib, which is a FLT-3 inhibitor. He will take it orally once per day. The side effects of the Sorafenib are basically the same as the chemo with the addition of muscle weakness.
We’ll have to see how Tyler is affected by this drug, but the doctors are pretty excited that he’ll be on it. Whereas the chemo is designed to kill the fast-growing leukemia cells, it will always leave some behind because of the rapid duplication of the cells. Sorafenib targets the actual FLT-3 gene mutation and is designed to slow down its rapid duplication. Pretty amazing stuff!