Delayed Intensification

So, Cole's delayed intensification began today. I've never looked less forward to something in my life.

Here's a very good write up my mom did that will walk you through the stages of delayed intensification:

Thursday, March 13th, Cole begins an 8 week arm of his treatment known as delayed intensification . This is a very intense portion of his treatment where he will be getting 8 different forms of chemo. Three of them he has never had before, and two he has had only once. Here's how the next three weeks will look starting Thursday, 3/13;

1. 21 days of steroids by mouth twice a day
2. Starting Thursday, 3/13, he will get two of the drugs, vincristine (IV) and doxarubicin (IV) - new -, once a week for three weeks.
3. On Thursday, 3/13, he will have a spinal tap where they will place methotrexate into his spinal fluid.
4. Either Sunday, 3/16, Monday, 3/17, or Tuesday, 3/18, he will get PEG asparaginase (IV) - had 1 time.

Staring Thursday, April 3rd, he will have one week off.

On April 10th, he will begin a two week period where he will get;

1. A spinal tap on 4/10 with methotrexate placed in his spinal fluid.
2. A one time dose of cyclophospamide (IV) - new - on 4/10
3. 14 days of Thioguanine (by mouth) - new -
4. Cytarabine (IV) - had 1 time - on 4/10 thru 4/13 and 4/17 thru 4/20

Starting Thursday, April 24th, Cole will have a two week break!! Whew.

I think the thing that I fear the most about all of this is that Cole will return to the zombie he was during induction. I've been savoring the past week. Cole, while challenging as any normal 2 year old is, has been delightful to be around. His personality is developing daily and some of the things he comes up with are awesome.

For example, Cole loves Backyardigans. If you haven't seen them, I highly recommend them. Backyardigans all end the same, with one of the casts bellies rumbling for food, at which point one of the others will suggest, "Let's head to my house, we're having X." And off they all go. In a recent episode Tyrone suggested that they have sushi. At this point, I told Cole, "Sushi is my favorite food."

Fast forward to today, 5:45 am, we're watching the same Backyardigans episode (you have to watch them multiple times to pick up all of the nuances, you see...). When Tyrone suggests sushi, Cole looks at me and says, "Sushi is my favorite food!" To which I responded, "It's my favorite food, too!" He reacted with a mixture of self-satisfied shock and glee. It was quite literally too cute for words.

It's little things like this that I'm afraid that delayed intensification will take from us, even if it is only for a time. I just pray that there's no return of zombie-dom. With everything else that's going to be going on, not losing his personality completely would be a blessing.

But, in the long run, I have to be grateful for delayed intensification. Grateful. That's really, really hard. I want to hate it all with everything I have. But, I can't. It's saving his life.