At the end of June we headed to Melbourne for Isla’s fifth EUA (examination under anesthetic). Isla’s bloods were high enough this month to allow us to start chemo straight away when we returned from Melbourne without testing again, so that made things a little easier.
The news from this EUA was good, no new tumours again and Isla only received some laser treatment to the large tumour in her right eye. At this stage, this is the only tumour still active. Both the two small tumours in her left eye and the smaller of the two in her right eye are now inert.
Although Dr Elder was working alone this month (usually there are two), he still managed to spend a bit of time with us in recovery showing us pictures of Isla’s tumours, which we really appreciated. We had only seen pictures from her original EUA when she was first diaganosed, so it was great to see the progress and make more sense of what had been done to treat her tumours so far.
In recovery
Isla recovered from her EUA well and everything ran smoothly leaving Melbourne and heading back to the WCH (Adelaide Womens and Childrens Hospital) for her fifth round of chemo on Thursday 28 June. Garreth’s parents were staying with us again and were able to pick us up from the airport and take us straight to the WCH when we flew in on Thursday morning.
Chemo ran smoothly over the Thursday and Friday. Isla did develop a bit of a rash on Thursday. The same thing happened during her previous chemo and the nurse thought it was just a heat rash (which is what it looked like). Since it happened again straight after chemo, we now know it is likely to be a reaction from one of the chemo drugs. The rash was a little worse than it had been the previous month, so we expect it to appear again after her last treatment, possibly worse again.
Before commencing Isla’s fifth round of treatment I had an appointment with our paediatrician who was concerned that Isla may be low in iron. Iron studies were performed and her circulating iron was a little low. Our paediatrician wanted us to give Isla an iron supplement daily for 6 months. Since we are hopefully getting close to the end of giving Isla regular medication, which she is not a fan of, I was hoping that stage of our life would soon be over. Therefore, I wasn’t super excited by the idea of giving her more medicine daily for at least another 6 months! Since her levels were not dramatically low and I needed to speak with the oncology team before giving her any medication anyway, I thought I would chat to them about the urgency of starting an iron supplement now. Since her blood counts are on a monthly rollercoaster following chemotherapy, it’s not a huge surprise that she might be low in iron. The oncology team were happy for us to follow the paediatrician’s advice and put her on a supplement, but mentioned they probably wouldn’t have been too concerned about her iron levels at this stage. Since I had brought it up, they suggested we hold off on any supplements for now and we retest her blood after chemo is finished. We are much happier with this plan and are hopeful that her iron levels may be higher after chemo is over. Since we were in the early stages of introducing solids to Isla at the time her iron was tested, I also think it will also improve as we build up the range for foods that she is eating.
© Alison Davey 2021