Treatment re-scheduled

We finally have some information about the next treatment time! It only took about four calls back and forth with the hospital (which is unusual - but his next step is unusual for the doctors so they were trying to decide how they wanted to proceed).
The phases of treatment are broken down into individual days to track on which day a particular procedure or drug is to be administered. In this phase, he is supposed to get a spinal tap and about three chemo drugs in the clinic on Day One (which was originally yesterday but will now be next Monday). On Day Four, the schedule calls for the drug asparaginase which is the one he had the bad reaction to. It will be replaced by a variant drug administered as a series of shots instead of an infusion into his port.
The doctors decided to combine Day One and Four, so when we go to the clinic on Monday (assuming his blood levels are where they need to be - blood test on Thursday will let us know where it's at) they will do the spinal tap and chemo infusions in the clinic then they will admit him to the pediatric ICU. He will receive the alternate drug and be held overnight for observation. I envision a whole team of people being on hand for the first administration of the drug to be ready for action in case he reacts badly to it as well. A bit nerve wracking, really. But we have faith that all will go smoothly. And if it does, they may administer a second shot of it. He needs to have three shots total next week and three again the following week. Assuming all goes well, the additional shots will be given in the clinic, not the ICU.
This phase is a repeat often December and January treatments and is the last one before Maintenance Phase (woo-hoo!). It means weekly visits to the clinic in Rochester but this time there will be four weeks out of the eight that we go multiple times for the shots to be given.

On a fun note, Sawyer and I are going to celebrate his feeling good by taking a short out-of-town trip over the weekend to visit some close friends we haven't seen in awhile. Mark has work commitments that prevent him from going with us so he'll hold down the fort while we're gone.