Hospital Update

We are almost halfway done with the antibody for this last. scheduled. admission. I keep bringing that up and telling everyone... this is our last scheduled admission. When staff members ask, "This is your last one, right?" I cheerfully say, "Yep! Last scheduled admission!" I always add the "scheduled" in there because we have no idea what the future holds. I hope that after this, Sam is done. Like done done with cancer, but I know that isn't always the way these things go. Does that make me a Negative Nancy? No... I think it makes me realistic. Maybe soon I'll be able to sit down and pour out a post about the own roller coaster of emotions the end of treatment brings, but right now I just want to bang out an update before the kid wakes back up and asks for the boob.

Anyway... so far things are going well. We got here early yesterday morning and he breezed through his first day. He got sick once last night and was a little snoozier than normal, but no issues or concerns. My only bother is trying to wrangle him with the ridiculously short IV tubing he has to have, but if that's the least of my worries I'll take it.




He woke up this morning as happy as a clam asking to go for a "wok" and had a great morning. The antibody runs for 10 hours from about 1:00 pm to 11:00 pm and he gets morphine for an hour before and continuously until four hours after the antibody is finished. Of course he was a little sleepy again once the started the morphine back up but he's still doing well. He slept through a visit with Shannon, the chaplain, who's last day is on Thursday and will be sorely missed around here. But I was so glad that he was awake for his buddy Matthew's End of Chemo party. I'll admit to getting a little choked up when we sang the End of Chemo song because I'm just so happy to see how far Matthew has come.

Sam is, too...



His temperature has started creeping up a bit today but it's not scary high yet. It was 100.7 with his 8 pm vitals so they just drew blood cultures to cover all the bases. (Praying for no surprises like last time!) His weight is already up a little, too, and I can see the puffiness in his face and fingers, so I'm sure that the super-pee drug lasix is in his future. He is definitely nursing and sleeping a lot more and wearing out more quickly that usual but that is to be expected. But he's still eating well. He ate all of the bacon that came with my breakfast and a truck load of mashed potatoes for lunch and dinner.

Thank you for your love, encouragement, and prayers. If you promise to keep them coming, I promise to repay you with things like this...

...You're welcome. ;)