Update from The Chupp Family…

Posted on | June 23, 2010 | No Comments

Beth wrote us a nice little update on what is going on with Keegan, but before I get there I want to let y’all know where all of this money that you are generously donating is going. We have not hit our $1,500 goal, but we still have 6 days left to do it! I really want to be able to at least cover this COBRA for 3 months for the Chupps. Please continue to donate and spread the word about Keegan & The Chupp Family.

Sweet Keegan with his new buzz cut!

When Beth lost her job, They lost lost her & Keegan’s primary insurance which was GREAT coverage. The transplant of stem cells alone is A LOT of money. They have Anthem now which will pay for the transplant and treatments,  BUT in order to keep that coverage there is a cost and its a pretty high one. Beth has not received the final numbers for COBRA’s monthly amount yet but she expects it to be around $500. This money raised will help Keegan and Beth keep our much needed insurance for at least a couple of months!

Okay, now on to Beth’s update on Keegan!

We were released from Riley last Wednesday June 16th; Keegan’s white cell count and platelets remained high enough that releasing him was not a serious risk to his health. He does have to wear a mask ALMOST everywhere he goes and we have to be super careful around sick people (so if you are sick, kindly stay away). Thursday was pretty uneventful, we had to come over to clinic to get a IV of G-CSF, it’s a drug that helps his bone marrow produce and release more white blood cells which hold the stem cells that they want to collect. On Friday, my Aunt Jacky came to visit, she is from Richmond VA and just loves Keegan to death. She happened to come into our RMH when the at home nurses were teaching me how to hook Keegan up to our at home IV system and give him his G-CSF. That was a fun experience, they couldn’t DO anything except tell me how to do it because the task itself (home teach) is non billable….how do you like those bananas? Anyway so I learned how to hook him up and give him an IV at home. The weekend passed pretty uneventfully, we had minimal vomiting anywhere between 1-3 times daily but he was taking more and more food orally so that was awesome!

Father’s Day was fun. We all went out to breakfast at IHOP went to Meijer to pick up some Rice Cereal and Enfamil and basically spent the rest of the day relaxing, nothing to productive but I really think Ry enjoyed his first father’s day.

Monday morning came and we had to be at the aphaeresis lab by 8:30. This is where they draw his stem cells to store till the end. It was a long drawn out process. The procedure should have started around 11:30 when all the blood work came back but it didn’t and we didn’t actually start harvesting cell until around 1:30 which put us WAY behind. After you leave the lab for the day, the techs call a couple of hours later to let you know if they got enough stem cells from the harvest or not…it not you have to go back and do the same thing the next day but if you did then you are free and clear. Around 6:30 my phone rang and the kind lady on the other line told me that we got enough! I was so excited because that meant we weren’t trapped in an itty bitty room all day to do the same thing! It also meant we could start Round 2 of chemo the next day instead of having to wait until Thursday!

On Tuesday morning Keegan and I reported to clinic at 9 am bright and early while Ry checked out of RMH for the time being. We got some anti nausea meds and then they gave him his push of Vencristine. We were released and headed down to the pharmacy to pick up the chemo that we are having to administer here at home. As the pharmacist began walking me through everything I got scared. One of the drugs are capsules that normal children could swallow but not babies so they have to be broken open and mixed with apple juice. But the pharmacist warned me to wear and mask and gloves because it could affect me in future pregnancies-NICE and I am putting this directly into Keegan’s stomach through his G-Tube…….

But anyway, we have started round 2, Ry has trimmed the small of amount of hair Keegan has left down to nothing and I am also happy to report I am typing this update from my own couch! We head back to Riley next Tuesday for our weekly Vencristine shot (its 3 hours one way-yuck!) and then are admitted either Friday night or Saturday morning for the last part of Round 2.

Please check out Beth’s latest blog post, Fiction vs. Reality.

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