Recharging

We feel recharged both physically and emotionally. That sounds funny as I type it because we still feel physically exhausted and our emotions are always close to the surface. But William has had a great week and we've spent some quality time with him and have called it his summer vacation. We are recharged because we made great memories!

It's been a week for the record books: 7 consecutive days at home! But the record stops there and we check into the hospital Monday morning. The day will begin with a clinic visit to check his blood counts. That should be routine and without surprises. He will then be admitted to the hospital for a bone marrow aspiration. We are praying and crossing our fingers that the results will show his bone marrow clean from cancer cells and ready for harvest. Then he'll head up to his room where the routine urine test start to make sure his body (kidneys) are functioning well enough to handle the next round of chemo. Again, routine and hopefully without surprises. Then the chemo signs will go up on his door, the nurse in her sterile get-up will enter, and the infusion will begin. It's rather anti-climatic other than the weird sense that we are under-dressed watching the nurse sporting a outfit that makes us think she's dealing with nuclear or toxic waste. I guess it is pretty toxic stuff. And then we will sit and wait for 96 for the infusions to finish.

I mentioned in a previous post that this round of chemo is a new cocktail and particularly nauseating. So we feel a bit more anxious about William's physical response this time. Hopefully the anti-nausea drugs will do the trick, but it's one of those things that can be completely different for each person. We'll be keeping a vomit tally just for fun. Besides, keeping track of any sort of record output always makes for a good laugh from an 8 year old! Up to this point, the count is 3.

On Friday evening we took William to the Bodies Revealed exhibit downtown. It was fascinating and William loved it. We spent nearly two hours looking and reading and talking about the bodies. The most interesting part was using the exhibit as a way to explain the location of his tumor and how it is affecting other organs in his body. William got to hold a real liver and stomach. We also studied the anatomy of the heart and explained how his Broviac (central chest line) is threaded through certain heart vessels and how his aorta is surrounded by the tumor.

Saturday was spent running errands and having lunch at The Old Spaghetti Factory---William's favorite. He made a valiant attempt at eating his meal, but we still came home with a doggy bag. We also had the opportunity to go to another hospital and meet a family from our church whose 7 month old daughter was just diagnosed last week with neuroblastoma too. It brought back all sorts of emotions that we have felt along this journey--some that we still experience on a daily basis. Talking with them was therapeutic, comforting, and strengthening. We feel so new to this whole cancer world, but being with them made us realize some of our progress and milestones. We feel strengthened and blessed to know that we are not alone in this trial. It is ironic that adversity has brought us together as new friends, but we are grateful for those simple little things that we feel the Lord has given us to help lighten both our loads.

Today also had some recharging moments, but I'm so tired right now, I'll share those tomorrow and go recharge with some sleep first!