I am Arjun Jain

On Monday morning Feb 4^th, I was all packed up to go to the hospital for my last round of Methotrexate and long hospital stay.  I was thinking in the car the whole time about how my blood counts are going to be. I did not want to come back and then go again if they are still low. But when I heard in the hospital that my ANC was 1050, I was so happy that I am going to stay and get it over with. My treatment did not start it until late in the afternoon because my urine was not clear enough but finally I was in my hospital room waiting for the medicine to start. I know the whole routine now so it’s easy to deal with it. I knew I was going to throw up at least once in the night because it happened every time.

Next morning, I attended my school through the Vgo robot in the morning the best I could since I was not feeling that well after waking up. I later had a great time with the dietitian and her cooking class. We made very healthy and nutritious breakfast of oatmeal waffles and Egg Frittata. Man it was so much fun and I actually felt like a cook. I loved eating self made waffles with the whipped cream, syrup and the fruits. My dad even got the recipe from her. That was the highlight of the day!

After my Methotrexate finished on Tuesday night, It was time for the blood test results for checking the toxicity level so that I can go home on time on Thursday. Actually my body did well with getting rid of the medicine. My toxicity level numbers were great each time. In 24hrs, it was 39.7 (supposed to be <150), 42 hrs, it was .24(supposed to be <1) and in 48hrs, it was only .27 (supposed to be <0.40).  we were surprised that my results at 48hrs were a little higher than the 42 hrs which got my mom worried and so my dad asked the doctor who said that the lab must have made the mistake because it is not possible for the numbers to go up. That was a relief because I really wanted to go home and get over with this phase.

On Thursday Feb 7^th, I was able to go home and that marked the END of 3rd phase of Chemotherapy. It also means that I have only one more phase left of intense therapy and then I will be able to go on Maintenance therapy. Then I will be able to go to school, get my port out and play hockey again!