Hello All,
The week of steroids were okay. Nick was definitely very emotional and meltdowns came everyday. He was getting upset over the little things and then it just escalated to food and not looking at him the right way. One day I sent him to his room to chill out and he ended up throwing everyhing around. He then came down stairs and pulled one of our kitchen drawers out and dumping all the stuff. I was a little surprised to see this much aggresstion in him but then again, it has been almost 2 years worth of steroids in his body. After his sadness came the love and happiness, the Nick we know. He would calm down and give me a hug and tell me how much he loves me, and the family. He gets over it pretty quickly. That is the thing about kids, they forget and move on and be happy. A little challenging for the adults to see it, deal with it and know it will be okay. Greg and I try to talk to him about the episodes a day or so later and let him know it is okay to feel that way and we are here for him. It is not okay to take it out on his brothers and us and yelling. We try to do our best.... As we are starting to say, another round of steroids down, hopefully only a few more to go.
On a great note, we (Colby, Nick and I) spent Saturday night at Aunt Amy's house for a girls night and kid night out. We had a great time. Nick was in pain most of the time and luckily I brought all the pain pills I could. He went through most of them but really handlded everything well. We have figured out, as long as he feels comfortable where he is, then he can get through the pain. He is astute to his vocabulary that he did say he felt 'left out' and 'alone' at times and people do not understand his chemo. Every child was great to him, I know he was feeling different and wanted to express it. Of course, by Sunday morning he was ready to go and back to himself. Which bring us to clinic:
I decided to take my chances (keep up with me on this) and bring Colby, Joey and Nick to clinic. 3 active boys and the lecture about behaving came way before we walked into clinic. They were great. It was a long day today. I know the clinic was short on staff and we ended up there for about 3 hours. The boys were good because we had the Wii to play and plenty of snacks. Nick's counts were high... to be expected aftet steroid week, but also counts we have not seen in a while.
WBC: 10.3 - normal range
RBC: 10.3
PLTS: 416 -- that is high
APC: 7,400
We will see next week what the 'real' counts are because they will probably drop and level off. He is on 6MP still and the upped dose. Nick is looking forward to his playdate tomorrow and the last week before school starts. Wow, time for 1st grade and full day of school.
This Saturday the kids (yes, all 3) are going to Auntie Lisa's for a sleepover, with their friend Brian. They are very excited and looking forward to swimming in the lake. Tom does not know yet, (of course, he is a 2 yr old) and will hopefully be good for Auntie Lisa. We will post later on their adventure. Take care. Another week down.... yes, scary we are starting to talk about the end. We pray it will come. Take care. Karen
Oh yeah, above is a picture of the boys at clinic. We can not leave out Tom. Tom was running around in the rain outside and decided sunglasses were necessary. Enjoy.
