Another long day at the Cancer Center. As usual we were the first to arrive and the last to leave. It started out like it was going to be a smooth day. We got there and the nurses were ready for us and Nathan was ready to cooperate. He ran to the weigh scale, popped over to the height measurement and then took off ahead of us into the treatment room. Nathan was ready to be accessed right away and we only had to count to one before nurse Heather poked him. His blood flowed right away (different than last Monday) and everything was great. We then moved to the back room for the resident doctor to check him out. I'm not sure what happened between the two rooms but Nathan flipped a switch. He became completely uncooperative and downright unpleasant. Shelley and I eventually had to leave the room to see if he would listen to the doctor on his own. Coming out of there he was still full of fight and as we were having a *discussion* in the hallway Dr Ali wanted to see Nathan. He was refusing to go back and nurse Andrea eventually had to scoop him up and take him away - not pleasant at all. Nathan was really rude to her and we can only guess that he was not nice to Dr Ali as well. This was very distressing for Shelley and I to say the least and we had no idea what was going on with Nathan other than he was angry! Our best guess is that Nathan sometimes acts up after having a long break and due to the delay from low counts, Nathan had a couple weeks off between treatments. He seems to resent having to go back for pokes and prods after having a *normal* couple of weeks.
After Dr Ali was done with him we decided to go for a walk outside. We managed to talk the anger out of him and after quite a few minutes of talking to Mom and Dad he was ready to come back in to apologize. That was fine when we were talking about it, but like most kids, Nathan has trouble apologizing when the person is in front of him. We managed to get a couple of "I'm sorry"s out to Dr Ali and nurse Andrea but not much more. Nathan then came back to the playroom with us but was very introverted. He didn't even want to play with Michael which is very very unusual for him. It took him well over an hour to climb out of the emotional hole he was in and thankfully he climbed out a lot more like Nathan. He was social, personable and much nicer to be around. He still teased and used some potty language but I will take that over the anger any day. After that we had a pretty good day.
It was the usual busy Monday morning in the Cancer center with five other kids than Nathan (and Esther) there. That is generally appreciated as it gives you more people to visit with and all of the parents are quite sociable. However, with the way Nathan was behaving we weren't much on visiting.
We had to wait for Nathan's blood counts to come back before we knew if we would be proceeding with treatment. Nathan's LP was scheduled for shortly after 9am and we even talked to the anaesthesiologist who said we would start as soon as the blood tests came back. Then the blood tests came back and he was good to go. He had to be over .75 for Neutrophils and he was 1.12. He also had to be over 75 for Platelets and he was at 266. RBC was at 4.02 with his Hemoglobin slightly low at 104. Blood was fine, Anaesthesiologist was waiting - let's go! Not so fast, the medicine wasn't ready yet... and so it begins (or rather stops). The Anaesthesiologist leaves and the medicine shows up - blood is still good to go. Finally, shortly after 11am, the Anaesthesiologist comes back, the medicine is ready and Nathan is set for his LP. Evidently there was something going on with Nathan as AFTER he was out, he sat upright on the bed in the procedure room - surprising everyone in there. They had to give him another 1/2 dose of the magic milk and more gas to get him sleeping longer. He woke up from that quite out of it and quite dizzy. We were even sent back to the back room to the couch for Nathan to wake up since they had to give him an extra dose.
Shortly after noon, Nathan was finally awake enough for us to go back to the playroom and have lunch. We ate/snacked for the next hour or so after fasting in the morning. Nathan then watched a show while Shelley had a nap in the comfy chair.(The morning was emotionally draining and I couldn't believe I fell asleep!) Nathan and I then worked on some puzzles, and after waking Shelley up from her "short" (hour and half) nap, we all played games together. It was a pretty good afternoon at the Cancer Center, not at all like the morning.
Nathan and Shelley have to go back to the Cancer Center the next three days for his ARAC. Hopefully they will be quick in and outs and Nathan will behave.
We had a nice evening out and about at our house and met a few more neighbours. It is feeling like a nice neighbourhood which is great.
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