ADI II - Done

On Friday Nathan had his last treatments for the Augmented Delayed Intensification phase and he did wonderfully.  He fell asleep on the way to the clinic so I had to carry him and Shelley's monstrously heavy green go-to-the-clinic bag.  Got him into the playroom and laid him down on a reclining chair and went - what the heck?!  The playroom is now simply a glass cage for the kids.  There is nothing left in there, no games, no puzzles and no toys.  Due to the H1N1 scare, they have taken anything out that could transmit the flu from one child to the next.  Sure makes for a boring playroom, I'm glad we are not at the 4 times a week spot in his treatment.  Nurse Andrea managed to draw his blood and hook up his IV all while he was sleeping since he is still accessed.  Shelley showed up shortly after and we let Nathan sleep for awhile.  He woke up after an hour or so and we were ready to go get his leg needles.  And once again Nathan did awesome; the first needle went very well but then he got apprehensive before the second one.  We did finally get through that one and now, as long as we stay on track, NO MORE LEG NEEDLES - WOOHOO!!!

Shelley has been doing a wonderful job giving Nathan his antibiotics.  I'm not sure she could handle a career change to nursing but she certainly would have a head start on more than a few required skills.  Nathan has being doing well at home but he keeps reminding us that he would like to go visit friends.  We keep telling him that he has to wait until his counts are higher and he is feeling better.  I do not know if it is the new antibiotic or just what it might be but he has complained about feeling nauseous these past couple of days.  Speaking of counts, on Friday his WBC counts went down again but his Neutrophils stayed the same.  WBC was 0.67 (just as reminder, normal is 5.0-15.0), RBC was 3.08, Hemoglobin was low at 82 but platelets were fine at 158.  Something is keeping those darn white blood cells down and we really need it to stop so that the cell counts cane come back up.

Rick asked us on Friday if we had gotten our H1N1 shots yet and we explained that we were not on any of the high risk lists yet, and though Nathan could have starting on Saturday, his lymphocytes are not high enough to get the vaccine.  He agreed that this wasn't right and was going to look into it for us as well.  I do not expect anything to come of it but it never hurts to have another advocate on our side. There are plenty of other families in our situation and I think it is a scenario that has fallen through the cracks.

Carter had a hockey game this morning, getting to play goal, so Arron took Justin with him to the game.  Nathan challenged mom to yet another game of Wii and then had a visist from his friend Matt.  Nathan sure is missing the social activity and so are his parents! Short term pain for long term gain is the reminder but sometimes hard to remember.

Tomorrow will be another day to try and get life back into the swing of things. This lack of routine is difficult.