The First Month

There is one confession I need to make: I love movies. All kinds of movies. From romance to action films, I simply love movies. I will tell you one thing though, they make everything quite dramatic. There is also a lot of movies revolving around adults and children with cancer, and in most of them the character is diagnosed with the cancer already spreading to different parts of the body and/or they are life threatening cancer so they mostly try to live their lives to the fullest. Before Erick was diagnosed I was very naive to the subject. Most of the information I have about cancer basically came from movies. Yeah actors are good but you never really understand what is cancer until you step into that role of life yourself.

For the first month after Erick was diagnosed, we learned what type of leukemia it is, how long treatment usually lasted, the financial programs there are for us parents, the side effects of the medicine he was going to take that first month, and also learned that the treatment plan goes through different stages, the first one is called “introduction”. The first month he was introduced to a type of chemo called “Vincristine”. He was also prescribed steroids, a medicine for his immune system, an antibiotic for his swollen lymph node, a mouthwash for his sores that he was getting inside his mouth (due to his medications) and another medication just in case he got nauseated. As hard or complicated as that sounds I feel like the first month was the easiest.

For the first month, since Erick was prescribed steroids, he had cravings and an appetite like crazy! Before diagnosis, Erick was one of the pickiest eaters ever (takes after my sister) and he basically lived off fruit, chicken, and yogurt. Well for this first month of treatment Erick wanted everything in sight! He wanted fried popcorn shrimp, potato chips, tacos, hamburgers, all kinds of fruit, and I was constantly getting up to feed him, and since the steroids also gave him pain in his thighs, I was carrying him everywhere. He was having difficulty walking everywhere and also lost his balance at times and would fall.

During this month he had gained weight, had gained these beautiful round cheeks, and also during this period he started wearing glasses. Now before Erick was diagnosed, his pediatrician had noticed Erick having trouble with his left eye. While the right eye was constantly moving the left eye would often get stuck. I had tried in the whole month of May to get him an appointment with an eye doctor, but it didn’t happen till the end of June. Hey, things happen for a reason. While the eye doctor was concerned the leukemia had something to do with his eyes, it didn't. This all happened since he was a baby. So happily, this gave Luis and I relief.

A lot of things had changed during this month, Erick started his first month of medication, we moved to another location, Erick had changes going on in his body, I stopped working to care for Erick and started educating myself in a subject I never thought was going to happen; but in spite of everything, I know one thing, love conquers all. As long as we had love and strength, my little trio was ready to tackle everything.