Sam Side Story

I little glimpse into the world of Samuel Duffy Herlehy- uber competitor.
Young Sam, just 2 days ago, discovered that he could- in fact swin in the shallow end of the pool without his swim vest. Made him feel like quite the big shot.

So yesterday this happens:

(Scene set-up: Samuel and Baylor are eating lunch by the deep end of the pool with mom auntie and grandma. Sam has a handful of food.)
Sam: Bay, first one in the pool wins.
Sam (pointing): Hey Bay- look at that Bird in that tree!
Distraction technique works as Baylor looks away from the pool towards the fictional 'bird in the tree'
Sam shoves remaining food into mouth (he is not a waster), and jumps into the closest pool access to him- the deep end.
Sam, not wanting to get him overflowing mouth of food wet, refuses to put his face into the water, which would actually enable him to swim to the side.
Thus, Sam begins to sink.
Mom needs to jump into the pool to rescue, the uber-competitive, deceitful child.

Dad is so very proud.

Menu Review

Things to avoid from the hospital menu:

turkey sausage- no bueno.

Otherwise things are pretty good. The Very BEST food that you can get in the city comes from Tres Hombritos

They stopped by the hospital this morning to deliver some grubby grub. Here is a picture of the tres hombritos themselves.



Health wise?
Things are progressing just fine. The mouth sores are here, and the docs expect a fever in the next day or so. But the sores have not reached the point where Max is hooked up to a continuous morphine feed yet. Until he's needing 5 or 6 doses/day they won't hook him up on it. Lots of movies and time with the Wii Lego Star Wars game. I'm pretty good. People know me.

Where's Weezey?

Um.... we are definately movin' on up. Check it out.

Day 1

So this is Day 1 (Day 0 being the transplant yesterday). Max woke up chipper, but is just not feeling all that well. 2 throw ups so far, and now he's taking a nap (12:56 PM), encouraged by morphine. Jamie has left the city for the first time in the last 10 days to spend 2 nights at home with Sam and Bay. Tough for her to leave, but good for everyone that we can take time to recharge our batteries.
I plan to watch a bunch of super-hero movies with Max. Right now the X-Men triliogy is being played often. Max's favorite is #3. He likes Jugernaught. I like #2, but I really just like them all. Iron Man is here and I'm hoping to move it into the viewing rotation soon. I may also try to get the Edward Norton Hulk. We like that. Any other recomendations? How was Daredevil? I hadn't heard much good, but Max would like to see it since we play with Daredevil in the Marvel Alliance video game.
Max and I will also be tackling the Lego Star Wars game some more. Love it.
Just had someone come in and let us know that we will be moving to a bigger room. We'll move over to room 749 later today. Still get a view, but the room is bigger and actually more windows.

transplant video

here is video of the actual transplant. Not super exciting, but here it is.



PS- I edited down the video and included some footage of the docs visiting him that day, and the transplant finishing up. I try to play non-sensical word play with the head doc- but he doesn't catch on. You can hear Jamie laugh as she appreciates what I'm doing. That's why I married her. She thinks my stupidity is funny and endearing.

Big Day

So today is the big Day. Max is doing pretty good actually Sleeping right now. They got enough of the stem cells from Sam yesterday. They will start transfusing around 10 AM. I should look just like a blood transfusion. Jamie and I will be hanging out, and worrying more than we need. But what else is there to do on a day like this?
Thanks to everyone for you thoughts and prayers. This will be the start of lots of good. In about 4 weeks we plan to be home and healthy in Foresthill.

Poor Sammy

Yesterday was not one of Sam's top all timers. It turns out he is violently against having people try to make him do something he would rather not do. Like take off his pants so the doctors could access his leg for the fermeral line. Freaked out.
Or accept the sedation drugs in his IV line and go to sleep. He fought like a Bronco for over 45 minutes. 2 grown men basically holding him down. Twisting, punching, kicking, slipping out of restraints. And yellin "I want to get OUT of Here!" over and over again with the occasional "This room is Stupid" thrown in for flavor.
Then when they took out the line is was more of the same. He does not accept defeat well. I think that bodes well for future athletic endeavors.

On the positive side, he was able to contribute these wonderful stem cells from his blood, that will make Max healthy again. This is what all the fuss is about folks.

harvest time

Sam and mom are in room 1231 right now. They are going to "harvest" Sam's stem cells today. Sam has been increasingly terrified of the shots as the past 4 days wore on. I'm hoping that fear is not the same with however they are going to put him down today, but odds are- it may get ugly.
Night was OK. Lots and lots of pee. They gave him something to make him pee. He feels miserable. They have him on round the clock ativan (nausea meds). In the night he woke up nuaseous then had a di-di attack while trying to throw up (4:30). The nurse admitted that she was 30 minutes late on his ativan. So that's how bad he feels.
He doesn't have any chemo today. Just some anti-rejection medicine. I wish I would have had some of that in high school.
Football is doing great. It was great for me to be able to get to 2 days this week. Coach Jim Anderson is keeping things working real nice, and you'll really like what you see from the defense this year. Travis Marshall is going to be a help on O. Smart, tough, good hands.

useless knowledge

I have this thing on my google home page called useless knowledge. It's fantastic. here is the submition for today:
"A bowl of lime Jell-O, when hooked up to an EKG machine, exhibited movements virtually identical to the brain waves of a healthy adult man or woman."

How great is that?

Monday

Tough day for Max today. They have to change the port needle every 7 days for him, and it was time. The port needle is the needle that goes into the "port" in his upper left chest. It is like a small rubber dial about 1 inch in diameter that connects more directly into his bloodstream. It allows the docs to access his blood easier (in theory). Today they had to try 4 separate times. 4 separate 'pokes'. Very tough for Max and mom who was there with him today. They finally were able to get blood from it tonight.
In addition to that trauma, his di-di (diarrhea) hit real real hard today. real hard. And to top it off he has been nausious. He threw up at least once when I was there, maybe another time. Not sure.
The thing is, his spirits have been great throughout. It's amazing.
Another tough chemo day on tuesday, then a day off of chemo on wednesday. Transplant thursday. Dad is nervous.
Uncle D (Denis) came down and spent the day with Max today. That made him very happy. Denis also took Sam tonight. Brave soul. Sam's last GCSF shot is tuesday. He's not a big fan of these. They 'harvest" from Sam Wednesday. He needs to be there around 7:30 in the morning wednesday. Keep your prayers for Sam then too.

Football?... It was nice to get to practice this morning. Travis Greene is gone all summer with an internship. Very glad he gets to do this. We do miss him however. Jace Pack looks to be a very big threat for us on both sides of the ball. I know that football seems trivial at these times, but I love football, and I love my team and my boys. So I will continue to give little mini-updates about the team. It's my blog dommit (think of Eddie Murphy as Gumby nsaying "I'm Gumby dammit)- that's what I was going for there.

Brian Regan

No real reason to delve into Jamie and my's love affair with comedian Brian Regan, but comedy is good at times like this. This is one of our favorite little skits. Especially appropriate for mom and dad in times like this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vquDkTw-G-4

Enjoy

Day -5?

I think it's day minus 5. Radiation is done. Diarreha is here. Big time. They no longer take a stool sample- it's a pool sample. Hey-o!

We have a chemo called Thiotepa today and tomorrow. He'll need to bath three times a day with these and change his dressings each day. He hates changing his dressing. They have to do this with thiotepa cause it seeps through his poors, and if it's not wiped off it will irritate his skin.

Max is doing real well. There a picture of him making Flubber with Kim the Child's Life Specialist. He really likes her. Its fantastic that hospitals provide this service. There's also a picture of Max with the Lego dumptruck that Kaitlin and Conner dropped off.

Sam and Bay come down today with Bob and Wilma. Sam starts his shots today. First one at 3 today. Be thinking of the poor fellow. His coping skills are near non-existant... on a good day.

hello fever, and what a view!

Well good morning 100 degree fever. We were thinking that you weren't going to be here for a few more days... but come on in!

It's like that cousin that shows up. Maybe like cousin Eddie from Vacation. But what are you going to do? Can't just tell him to leave...

Max had a slight temp (about 99.4) throughout the night, and this morning was at 38.4 C, which makes things easy to undersatand- right? I mean doesn't everyone in America use celcius to measure their temperatures? So apparently 38.0 is 100 degrees in normal world, so 38.4 C is above that. Sure I could have gone to a webpage and converted it, but now you too can experience the thrills that I do.

We're thinking that this may be the bug that Sam and Bay had before we left. It's like a 24 hr fever, but the really nice thing about it is that is comes with sores in the mouth. Cool huh! They took cultures, and have him on antibiotics, so it is what it is.

Positive note? The view is great. You can't tell in the pictures, but we can see barges coming in and out of the bay. I could tell you that we sit and dreams about riding out on the barges and how they symbolically represent us leaving the hospital... but we don't. Just a cool view. It'd be even cooler if we could see the ballpark!

We had our 5th radiation (out of 6) this morning. Despite the fever Max held still for the duration, and we actually stayed on schedule this morning (to a degree). Last radiation around 2:30 today.

video chat

We thought it might be nice for Max to see others, and for others to see Max, so Jamie and I have webcams and you can do a video chat with us so you can talk with Max. Either Jamie or I will be in the room at all times. Jamie is jamieherlehy@gmail.com, and I am jimmyherlehy@gmail.com. Gmail makes it really easy to do the video chat. Maybe others do also, but we've been happy with this.
We think they have the raqdiation machine fixed now so we'll be back on track for an 8 am session. We'll see. After tomorrow (finishing off our radiation) he will have 4 days of chemo, one day of rest, then one day of chemo before his transplant. They mark these days as day -8, -7 etc. (today is day -7 friday is day -6) The transplant day is day 0. I'm filling you in on this cause I think it's kinda interesting and I may use this terminology in the future.

halfway done with radiation

3 out of the 6 radiation treatments down. It's a full body radiation. He stands in the cage wears a harness, and holds onto handles. I'll see if I can swing a pic somehow.
And the radiation was supposed to be at 8 this morning, but the machine broke. Comforting. We finally got in at 2.
Transplant is scheduled for a week from today. Sam will be down here saturday early afternoon. He checks in at 3. He gets 4 days of GCSF injections (sat, sun, mon, tues) to help boost new stem cells. He won't care much for those.

cousin Mike

Side note- My cousin Mike is battling Hodgkin's. He has a blog also. He started his own successful advertising company. Needless to say, that his writing is way more engaging and entertaining than mine. I just wanted to get this address out there for others who may want to keep up with him. I know I had mentioned it to Denis.
http://myrecurrence.blogspot.com/

Radiation 2 of 6 coming up. They put him in a wheekchair, and cover him with blankets to wheel him down the hallway. They may be magic blankets, but I fear that we are operating in the arena of "if the germs can't see him, they can't get to him" theory. Not super reassuring.

Some Pics

Here's a pic of his hospital room and a pic of Max in bed. He's real tired right now and his tummy's hurting. I'm going to jump on Webkinz and play some games to earn him some webkinz money. Cause his pet leopard- named Leopard- is hungry.

Day 1- morning session

Max had his first raditation just a bit ago. He has to stand up with this harness around him for about 20 minutes or so during the radiation. Wasn't his favorite thing in the world, but I think it went fine. He's not feeling great right now- he's taking a nap in the room. I think a certain degree is about his nervousness, and unfamiliarlty of everything.
My thoughts on the hospital so far? Lots of scrubbing. 2 minutes with sponge up to forarm, then alcohol gel on the hands, and if you leave the floor... all over again. I think he'll be fine. Waiting to see how he handles the radiation. They'll give him some morphine when he needs it. I'm hoping that he doesn't turn into Christopher Walkin from the Deer Hunter.
I'll keep things going as much as I can.

Hidey-Ho!

So the whole point of this blog is to serve a couple of purposes. Primarlily I want to be able to share updates about Maxwell, my son who is undergoing a bone marrow transplant at UCSF on Thursday June 25th. I also plan to use this blog as a forum to share my thoughts about football in general, and my football team in particular.

I'm the head varsity football coach of the Foresthill Wildfires in Foresthill CA. We're a small high school of about 250 kids. We opened in 2003, and got stadium lights last year. Small town football as it's meant to be.