Exhaustion and Milkshakes

Yesterday, Kevin received the “big 3” chemotherapy treatments. This only happens every six weeks, so we tend to forget how tired he becomes after receiving all of the medications at once. Furthermore, the chemo appointment this week took 5 hours, so that in itself wore him out (it also wiped out Mom, Dad and Kathlin). However, Kevin’s local oncologist thought Kevin looked good, and he is nudging us to get Kevin off the steroids. Kevin is now on a very low level of steroids. We’ve been tapering him off very slowly, giving his body a chance to take over so the swelling doesn’t suddenly return. With the oncologist’s suggestion, we might increase the speed of the taper, and we might have him off the steroids by Kevin’s next chemotherapy appointment in two weeks.

We’ve decided to do a system of star rankings for the milkshakes that are excluded from the contest for best chocolate shake. Kevin has been drinking a lot of milkshakes from Marianne’s in Santa Cruz, but there’s only so many chocolate milkshakes that one ice cream shop can make. Kevin has started branching out to new flavors. I’m adding a new column, "Shake Stars," to the side of the blog for milkshakes of various flavors (other than chocolate), ranked 1 to 5 stars. So far, he’s given the Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Dough milkshake from Marianne’s a 4. For Kevin’s birthday, Kathlin’s parents gave him a milkshake machine. He’s been flipping through a milkshake cookbook for the past couple of weeks, figuring out what recipes he wants to try. They finally fired up the machine today and made a Bananas Foster shake. I don’t think they flambéed the top of the milkshake, though that would have been quite exciting! He has ranked the homemade Bananas Foster milkshake a 4 as well.

Despite Kevin’s decreased energy level lately, he’s had some great achievements. On Sunday, he stood at our makeshift standing frame for a record total of 28 minutes. He’s also managing to gain some control of his left arm and leg. I’m still amazed that he can move his left arm on command; he couldn’t move it for such a long period of time. Kevin’s hair is also starting to grow back in. It’s very downy and fuzzy at this point, but it’s getting thicker every day. Kevin’s blood work is also much more stable than it used to be. His platelet count is staying at a healthy, normal level, and his potassium and magnesium levels are steady, though on the low end of normal. Another indicator in his blood work now shows that he’s building muscle mass. We’re hoping his energy level grows over the next few days, but even with the little energy he does have, he’s managing to do some things that weren’t possible for him a few weeks ago.