Only four more to go

We are now less than a week away from finishing radiation. Next Thursday is the official last day!!! I for one will not miss radiology in the least. This week went pretty well. I took Ryan to several appointments Thursday. We had radiation at 8 am, oncology at 10:30 am (for checking his blood counts and giving him one of the chemo drugs, Vincristine ), and then the opthalmologist at 2:15 pm to check on his eyes. The radiation has started making his head a little sunburned looking and the back of his head has started peeling a little bit but all that was to be expected.
The oncology appointment went well with no problems. I met with a psychologist who will be doing some baseline testing on Ryan sometime in March and then will follow up with him over the next few years to track what longterm side effects and problems Ryan experiences as a result of radiation and chemo. That testing is all part of the study that Ryan is participating in for the radiation. I spoke to the oncologist and he said that after next week we'll have four weeks of freedom before the chemo starts and he felt like it would be fine for us to go on a little vacation of sorts for a weekend getaway. Ryan was thrilled because the oncologist said that it would be alright for Ryan to get in the swimming pool at a hotel. He immediately began telling me where he thought we could go for a trip. We are going to try and go away for two or three nights sometime in the next few weeks after Christmas and just let the kids swim in an indoor pool at a hotel.
The opthalmologist appointment went fine. He gave me a patch and told me to start patching Ryan's good eye a couple hours each day to force his right eye to work more. He's hoping that that will help begin to correct the crosseye problem. He said that it hasn't been long enough since surgery, and also with radiation still ongoing, Ryan's brain is probably still having some swelling and just needs time to heal more. He said for me to bring him back in about 4 months and they would be able to get a better picture on what progress has been made or not. He acted as if the eye problem was fairly common for surgery like that and felt that things were progressing well from where Ryan was in the immediate week following surgery. Just more "hurry up and wait" advice. We just have to hang in there and see how things go in the coming months.
I took Ryan to Target to kill some time between appointments and he found a pair of toy Nun-chucks like they use in karate movies. He has been using them to hit everything that moves. He took them into his opthalmology appointment because he thought Dr.Estes would think they were cool. He may look different right now but he is still the same Ryan inside.