Moving Into Cycle 2

Cycle 2 started last week, and it’s been… a lot. Bea handled the first couple of days well, but the side effects have been piling up quickly. She’s dealing with leg pain, nausea, mucositis in her mouth and intestines, loss of appetite, night sweats, and a return of headaches. She’s also been dealing with periods of blurry and double vision — they ordered a T2 MRI to check on this and rule out pressure/excess fluid buildup, and thankfully that showed her ventricles are stable and the shunt is doing its job post-reinternalization, which was a massive exhale for all of us. Her team thinks it could be a side effect from the vincristine — it does seem to be getting better every day, though. We’re thankful that the doctors really stay on top of things, and her pain is well managed for the most part.

Fevers have also popped up here and there, each one prompting more cultures and scans. Thankfully, so far everything has returned clear.

Her counts will drop soon, and we’ll enter the waiting-and-watching phase of the cycle. There is still talk of potentially spending some time at home before cycle 3, if the fevers are kepts at bay, her appetite returns, and her pain dissipates. For now we are taking things day by day with lots of cuddles and movies.

And on the (temporary Upper East Side) homefront, Reid continues to bring us all daily joy. She is laughing and smiling constantly, and she tried her first solid food this week. It was a (messy) hit!

Thank you to everyone who continues to hold Bea so tightly in your thoughts <3

— Shannon and Brooks