« October 20, 2006 | Home | October 30, 2006 »
October 25, 2006
By Margot | October 25, 2006
Sam with no white count is like a check written by my mom – always bounces back.
After a fun and funny field trip to the pumpkin patch with Sam’s first grade class he came home completely wiped out and started a low grade fever on Tuesday night. It ranged from 99 to 100 all night. On Wednesday, we knew he needed blood so I didn’t even attempt school. We came in early to the hospital and I was hoping, though I knew better that he wouldn’t spike (get to 101) and we wouldn’t have to be admitted. Before they’d even ordered the blood for him, he was at 102.7 and we officially bounced back in. This one has been tougher on him. In the last couple of days, his entire mouth has developed mouth sores so it’s tough for him to eat anything but really soft food, he’s got thrush on his tongue and his fever has been continuous with no sign of a break. He gets the chills as soon as the Tylenol wears off and spikes again. He’s sleeping now after getting Tylenol this morning. We are giving him “magic mouthwash” and some other mouthwash that I can’t spell for the mouth sores and they are adding Vancomyacin and Fluconizol (sp?) to his anti-biotics. He has to be pre-medicated for the Vanco because he gets all red and itchy if he doesn’t get Benadryll first. So, he’ll probably be sleeping most of the day. His platelets are dropping and he’ll probably need a platelet infusion by Saturday. Hopefully his white count will come up by the end of the weekend so we’re out for Halloween. I don’t even want to contemplate not being out for Halloween. I’m guessing we’ll be ok though. Sam as usual has been a champ. I was in the school room with him last week and the teacher there said to me, “He is really adorable, you are so lucky.” Then in the treatment room about ten minutes later the nurse who had been treating him all week whom we love, said, “He is so good, you are so lucky.” Not that they are telling me something I didn’t already know. He asked me last night when he was going to be done with “all this cancer.” I wished I could tell him tomorrow.
Sammy was too scared to go to school on Monday. I got him to the door of his classroom to drop off his homework but couldn’t get him to stay. After a week of being out, he was really scared to go back. I knew he wanted to go on the field trip and since I was driving I thought that might be a good way to ease back into school. So on Tuesday morning before the field trip he went back into his classroom. He was quite the celebrity. The kids were funny and sweet. “SAM! Sam is back! Finally! Mrs. Gage, he IS wearing a hat! Sam, a lady came on Friday to tell us about how you have CANCER!!” Sam took it well and I was glad I was there with him on the field trip to answer a couple of difficult questions from a couple of kids. They ran through mazes and went on the slide jumpy, did pony rides, a hay ride, and went the petting zoo and then each got to pick a pumpkin. Sam had a great time but was pretty wiped out by the end of the day. He came home and fell asleep on the couch within a few minutes of walking in the door. In the middle of going through one of the mazes towards the end of the day, he just sat down and asked me to carry him. Have I mentioned that chemo blows? I’m glad I didn’t know his counts because he really had a good time and I’m sure we would have bounced back anyway.
Andy is sick too. I went home last night after being at the hospital all day and he lay down on the couch around dinner time with the glazed eyes and said he had the chills. He spiked a fever of 102 before I got some Motrin in him and he threw up before he went to sleep. Poor little guy. I had to get back to the hospital with pajamas, etc. for Sammy so instead of shoving the two little guys into the car with Andy so sick, Neil left Sammy with a nurse for half an hour and came home so one of us could be with Andy. We’ve never done that before but Sammy was fine aside from the fact that he had to go pee really badly by the time I got back and didn’t want to bother the nurses about it. I had promised Sammy I would stay with him last night but it broke my heart to leave Andrew so sick even though he was asleep by the time I left. I can’t be two places at once, and therein lies the rub. I was so careful before we were diagnosed. I’d read “Siblings without Rivalry” and “Raising Cain” and every boy parenting book I could get my hands on. I know how important it is for little boys to be able to rely on their mother at age 3 and 4 and for all the kids in a family to know they are special in their own way. Though I’m doing my best, little funny sweet Andy is not getting enough of me lately and I worry about it. The only thing I can console myself with is that we have so many people who love him taking care of him when we can’t. PBS did a documentary a while back about families with cancer called “A Lion in the House.” I couldn’t actually bring myself to watch it because after five minutes of it, I was in tears and seeing as we lived it, I figured there wasn’t much I could learn from it. They did a review of it in the paper though and I’ll never forget it. It described the basic premise and what it covered and then said something like, “It gives a vivid portrayal about how families who have a child with cancer virtually ignore all of their other children. It really bugged me and it’s been on my mind ever since. Then a couple of weeks ago someone asked me if the baby was being ignored. Argh. It’s tough when we are in the hospital but we are staying a family as much as possible. I came home this afternoon to see Andy and he was feeling much better and was out catching bugs. I helped him catch a couple of worms and told him next time we see Grandpa, maybe we can catch some worms and go fishing. He named one of his worms Dracula because “all the times worms are filled with blood.”
I took Charlie with Sammy and me yesterday so Elizabeth could take Andy to sports and the park (this was before I knew he was getting sick). Charlie stayed with us the whole day at the hospital and was his smiley, happy little self. He is such a cutie and so so sweet. He really loves to smile now and will give anyone who smiles at him a big grin. The other day Andy was asking me how Charlie got out of my tummy and I said the standard evasive, “the doctor took him out.” “But how did get out?” I was wondering if Andy was really trying to figure out biology and anatomy at such an early age and then he asked, “How do we get him back in?” Andy and Charlie didn’t give their daddy much sleep last night. Neil I think is actually looking forward to spending the night in the hospital tonight because between Andy and Charlie he got less sleep than with the nurses coming in all night – and that’s saying something.
Neil’s brother Matt is here and is actually staying with Sammy at the hospital for a few hours. It’s great to have reinforcements. He just called and Sam is running a fever of 103.7 !!! We are on our way back in.
Margot
Topics: Progress Reports | Comments Off on October 25, 2006
Comments are closed.