Random Acts

Each day of antibody was a little better than the day before.  Wednesday (the 1st day) was the worst for pain and each day improved from there.  Thursday night, the bad fevers started and continued through most of Friday.  Friday was Daddy's birthday and we had a mini pizza party in the hospital room to celebrate.  Daddy stayed with Nate on Saturday and the fevers pretty much stopped.  So, Sunday at 12:30pm when the IL-2 infusion stopped, Daddy and Nate were released to come home.  Wes and I spent all morning cleaning the house and doing all of Daddy's chores, so he could come home and spend his Father's Day with his feet up, watching sports.  We relaxed and had a nice Father's Day dinner with Papa, Lou Lou, Grandma and Linde.

Nate is doing pretty good.  He is super tired and wears out easily.  We are trying to have fun in the little bits of time that Nate is feeling energetic.  He's feeling more like himself a little bit every day.  I like to compare antibody treatment to a REALLY BAD (and super painful) flu.  Nate is being forced to have the flu every four weeks.  He didn't eat much or get out of bed much for five days.  It's totally understandable and expected to feel super tired and a little funky for a few days after a really bad flu.  That's where Nate is at.  He's getting a bit better each day, and had a better day today at Tracy's house.  Monday, I took all three kids to clinic (yes, I am crazy) for Nate to get his blood check.  Everything looked pretty good except his platelets were 51 (an expected antibody side effect).  He will get them rechecked tomorrow and will need a transfusion if they have dropped below 50.  I am hoping that they have somehow started to come up on their own.  Nate hasn't had to have a single transfusion since being released from the hospital after his stem cell transplant (not even through radiation) and we'd like to keep it that way...not to mention that we hate spending all day at clinic waiting for platelets.

Last week was kind of tough.  It's always hard to "make Nate sick" by putting him through another treatment...especially when he has been doing so well.  It is so hard to see him sick and in pain.  Just when I thought it was going to be another really bad day, there was a random act of kindness.  There was the voice message from someone at Hubbard Sports Camp, who reads this blog and saw the scheduling changes we were dealing with, offering for us to change Wes's camp schedule around however we need to.  This person did not have to take the time out of their day to make that phone call.  We had figured it out, but it was so nice to know that this person cared enough about our little family to make such a nice phone call.  Then, there was the extra money in my pay check this week thanks to the sweet bookkeeper at my store who put my personal days in for me.  My schedule has been so sporadic this year, that I thought I would just have to forget about my personal days.  Honestly, I haven't even had the time to even think about submitting them, and still my store's bookkeeper took the time out of her day to notice my personal days that were about to expire and submit them for me.  Then today, I came home to a package from a couple women who went to pharmacy school with Chris.  These ladies sent us a gift certificate for a couple's massage package.  Wow!  How nice is that?!?  Out of no where, they decided to make sure that Chris and I would get some relaxing time together...and boy, do we ever need it!  Again, these things barely scratch the surface of all the wonderful, selfless things people have done for our family this year, they just seemed like such rays of sunshine in a very gloomy week for us.  So, thank you again to everyone, for everything.  We really can't wait to pay it forward.