Easy Exit

We went to the treatment center for counts and actually didn't need anything. His white counts are low but not ridiculous (don't know the ANC yet; he could be close to 1000 or could be much lower). Hemoglobin was 9, and platelets were 45,000. He was a little more tired and grumpy, probably because we woke him up a bit earlier. But he was still pleasant.

We saw some of our "new friends" at the center today. One was a four-year-old with his mom (who is also pregnant; found out about her son's leukemia after finding out about being pregnant). The other is a thirteen-year-old who was diagnosed at some point during The Boy's first long hospital stay. It's pretty different for all of us mothers because of the varied ages of our children. As horrible as it is for us, it's really another routine for The Boy and us, and he's been doing this for almost a year. A four-year-old can understand that he is sick and may even wonder why he has to be punished with all of the icky medicine and hospitalizations. A thirteen-year-old, on the other hand, is generally pretty knowledgeable, and already pretty emotional even without illness...so you add in cancer, which can kill you, and it's just a miserable scene. Someone The Boy's age doesn't really know any differently and doesn't care that he feels crappy--he is busy and has things to do, and can't be bothered to feel sick. Not so with patients who are old enough to know better (with the exception of my mother; thankfully The Boy has taken after her in terms of dealing with chemo side effects).

While we were both in the hospital, we gave this girl a gift card, to help perk her up a bit.

It's a drag that The Boy will have a low white count tomorrow for the walk. We will still take him out but we will just be careful. It is a lot easier, and I feel a lot better, with him being outdoors with low counts as opposed to stuck in enclosed spaces.

We are going to be part of an interview tomorrow morning! They called us and asked us, mostly because The Boy is so cute and also because our team is doing so well. So we have to go for that, and then Musical Daddy does the run at 9:30. The ribbon-cutting for the walk is a bit after 10:30, and then the walk starts at 11 and goes until...?? I'm thinking that once the walk really gets underway and they've had a decent stroll, I'll send The Boy home with Grandma. She doesn't care for the outside anyway.