This evening I went to the "family room" at the hospital to heat up my Lean Cuisine. The family room is usually pretty empty. Tonight there were four teenage boys (one of them hooked to an IV pole) playing poker, laughing, and picking on each other. There was even a bag of snacks. As I waited for the microwave to beep, I watched them out of the corner of my eye and grinned ear to ear. I wonder if those three boys know what special friends they are. There's not a lot of "normal" here on the 7th floor...and right there in the family room was a little pocket of "normal". Teenage boys being teenage boys...cancer or no cancer. I am so grateful that this boy has friends like these...friends that can make the cancer disappear, if only for a few hours.
Then, I had to fight back tears as I realized that we have these friends too. We have so many special friends that have cared for us this year, but there is one sweet family who has taken extra, special care of us. They've brought us food at home and the hospital. They've come to visit and hang out at the hospital and spent almost every Saturday night that Nate was in the hospital, playing cards and eating snacks with Chris after Nate went to sleep. When Nate was the absolute sickest he has been in this journey, when we felt the least "normal", and we were the most scared and alone. They came to our house, made us dinner, and just hung out...like nothing was different. They were there as we were glued to our son's side, catching his vomit, cleaning what we didn't catch, stopping nose bleeds, giving shots, giving medicine, yelling at each other because we were stressed, tired and scared. They didn't retreat, they didn't flinch. They continued to come over and take care of us as we took care of Nate. Thank you Woods family, we hope you know what special friends you are. Your love and friendship over the last 15 plus years has meant so much...but this last year, it has meant the world. We love you!
Nate started Round 3 of antibody today. We are very grateful that he was able to start today, on schedule, after the fever scare and hospitalization he had last week. Starting round 3 on time means that our annual San Diego vacation should work out perfectly. We just have to pray for no more fevers or infections. He has been doing really great today. The first day of antibody for rounds 1 and 2 were pretty rough with lots and lots of pain that started about 2 to 3 hours after the antibody started. We got 4 hours in and Nate wasn't complaining of pain at all. Then, he started coughing uncontrollably...just when we think we've got this thing figured out he comes up with a new side effect. The antibody was turned off and an antihistamine was given...but the coughing didn't let up. His lungs were clear and his oxygen level was fine, but the coughing wouldn't stop. The nurse actually got a dose of epinephrine pulled up in a syringe to give him, when another nurse stopped her to look into the protocol some more. I heard her talking about worrying that if they gave him the epinephrine it might cause a problem with him getting more antibody, due to the study protocol. I started to get pretty stressed. It's VERY important that Nate get all five of his antibody rounds to increase the possibility that he will stay cancer free forever. Ultimately, they decided to do a breathing treatment, that Nate HATED and was a pretty miserable 10 minutes. It did the trick, though, and the cough started to slow down and eventually stopped. He's been resting pretty comfortably all evening, with only a few pushes of the morphine button. If he keeps this up, we should be running laps around the 7th floor by the end of the week. Total super star!
No comments:
Post a Comment