Chemo 4, Day 1

All in all, another boring day. As I said, we like boring. We got up early and went to breakfast at the diner. We learned our lesson, though, and will likely do breakfast in the hospital cafeteria instead, for the sake of time. But The Boy ate well and was charming.

Thankfully, Musical Daddy took us to the hospital and brought us and all of our stuff to the admissions office. I think that for subsequent treatment stays, we'll do the same. It worked. As soon as we were in there and I was waiting for the person at the desk to process David's admission (which took longer than usual for some reason), I put on his EMLA cream as we waited. Then upstairs to the floor, with the help of the lady from the desk to get the stuff upstairs.

You see, The Boy travels with a lot of stuff. We have the big red bag, which contains his playmat (taking up almost half of the bag) and packages of Seventh Generation Disposable Diapers, as well as some of the toys, containers of Lysol Wipes, and assorted other things in the pockets because we don't want to bring the diaper bag, and we have the toy bin, which is about 2 by 2 by 1.5. I also had an additional bag of stuff that I grabbed on the way out the door, which I otherwise would have stuffed into the red bag. It's really not that bad and I can almost, maybe, kind of, manage it on my own. Except for the fact that I also have to carry The Boy, who doesn't do much in the way of walking. More on that coming up.

Not long after we got into the room, we learned that The Boy's pediatrician happened to be on the floor and would be stopping in to see him. He talked with me for awhile and said that he was pleased about the fact that The Boy seemed to be doing pretty well even with the chemotherapy, and that he was staying on track developmentally, or close enough.

On that topic: as we left this evening, Musical Daddy wondered if The Boy's staying on track was a sign that the chemo isn't working once again. I pointed out that it has had quite an effect on him, what with him needing transfusions so frequently, not to mention that only just beginning to walk at 17 months isn't exactly typical. My thought was, rather, what would The Boy be like if it weren't for the chemo? Unfortunately, it is impossible to speculate on that because the cancer and the resultant treatments are a part of him, and we can't "what if" about him and wonder if he could have been some superstar if it weren't for the cancer. He's still a superstar and I have every hope that he'll stay that way.

Anyhow, getting back to the chronicle of the day--the nurses accessed his port at 9AM. We got one of our favorite daytime nurses, who was assisted by another favorite daytime nurse who hadn't seen The Boy since his initial diagnosis.

The chemo didn't start any earlier than last time, and this is the 6 hour infusion followed by the 1 hour infusion. However, it was finished a bit earlier because she decided to do the Zofran at exactly 12 and 8 instead of doing the Zofran in between the two chemo meds. As a result, the every-15-minutes of blood pressure was not done during the shift change. Also, and maybe this is just because this nurse is that good, The Boy got the meds that I said he gets at 7PM...at 7PM. We learned to say that he gets his meds at 7AM and 7PM because otherwise they forget about the meds and he doesn't get them until 9:30, when he's already asleep and is in no mood.

The day, beyond that, was pretty boring. We napped from 9:30 to 11:00 and again from 2:00 to 3:30. When we weren't napping, we were playing. During his playing, The Boy discovered how to push himself to standing from hands and feet! This was huge! He would sometimes take a few steps after that and sometimes just stand there for awhile. He looked so strong, like he had no problem standing there, and it was almost foreign to me because he's still a baby in so many ways.

He also says the word "shoes" which is the cutest thing in the world.

Drama for today, because we have to have some: somehow The Boy's IV got unscrewed. As in, one of the links came undone. This is BAD, because there is horrible chemo stuff in there. There was some blood return coming out through the line as well. I hit the nurse button and cleared off the mat IMMEDIATELY. Of course our nurse was the only one around at the moment. One of The Boy's oncologists was around, and I asked her for help, which she wasn't so able to do, although she tried, by asking where they keep the flushes. I didn't know (although I'm sure I will know pretty soon). Finally The Boy's nurse gave the oncologist the key to get the flushes. We put the toys and mat pieces to the side to be cleaned, and the nurse got the drippings up from the floor, and fixed the IV. The oncologist examined The Boy after that was all done.

Daddy, Grandma, and Grandpa all arrived around the same time, 5:15-ish, and it was so nice to be together with everyone. Grandma comes to spend the nights with The Boy, and she takes such good care of him. Not to mention, she takes good care of the nurses. And me.

I should have the computer with me tomorrow, so I'll be able to update more regularly, but so far, everything is going well, and we hope upon hope that it all stays that way and we're out on Sunday in time for most of the Super Bowl.