As I may have mentioned before, Jack has to have many tests done after each round of chemotherapy.  These are done either to detect unwanted side-effects from the previous round, or to ensure that his body is ready for the next. 

This week, Jack has had some more of his post-Round 4 and pre-Round 5 tests.  He went under again for another hearing test because one of his chemotherapy drugs can permanently damage hearing -- its a similar drug to the one that was taken out of Round 3 -- and the hearing tests showed no change, so that's good. 

He also had a kidney test which also showed no change from the one prior to Round 4, again good.  (He was not anesthetised for the kidney test but it meant the better part of a day in the hospital -- they inject a radioisotope into his blood, and then take his blood at specific intervals throughout the day to determine how well his kidneys are flushing things out, basically.)  He did really well, and was actually upset when we had to leave because he was watching "The Jungle Book" and it wasn't over yet.  He also has his routine blood tests as well. 

In the latest blood test, the doctors noted some change in the blood indicative of liver stress related to the IV nutrition.  So tonight, Jackson is on his own.  He does not get his TPN (nutrition), he just gets fluids through his 'tubies.'  We're hoping that the absence of the calories from not getting the TPN, combined with his recent partial intererst in garlic bread, will combine to trigger more hunger and more eating and drinking on his own tomorrow.  We'll see.  By my calculations he needs to eat at least 5 entire pieces of Pepperidge Farm Texas Toast just for the calories alone.  He did take his first sip of water in a couple of weeks today, so we're optimistic that he's on the right track.

Hopefully, this high-dose chemo w/stem-cell rescue is doing it's job.  Yesterday, while I was at the hospital for Jack's kidney test, I ran into the nurse practitioner that we had for Rounds 1-3.  She is wonderful and Keri and I love her.  We now have a different practitioner for Rounds 4-6 in the transplant unit, so she asked how Jack was doing with the high-dose chemo.  I described to her how Round 4 was harder on him in terms of side-effects on his gut and not eating or drinking, than Rounds 1-3 were, and how this was different or that was different, etc., etc.  She said, "Yeah, that's because it's harder chemo."  Pretty simple when you look at it that way.  We just pray the cancer feels the same way.