Our weekend

We are winding down a rollacoaster of a weekend. Cameron was home just one night last week when he had to return to CHOA Scottish Rite with fevers. We had hoped to have him home again in no time but his fevers seem to recur and with his white blood cell count still so low his doctors have kept him as an inpatient while he continues to receive IV antibiotics and platelets today.

The side effects of his first chemo cycle are distressing for him and ourselves as parents, as is his inability to keep much food and formula down. The nurses have been fantastic in reassuring us that these responses are typical for chemo patients but it is still tough to watch him go through it.

We brought James down to the hospital this afternoon when Nikki & I switched shifts. It is amazing to see things through a childs eyes, to us an elevator ride is a way to avoid stairs - to James it's this really cool room that has tons of things to press and then opens into a totally different place - he always squeals with delight when the doors open. He and Cameron had a good time together although we were careful not to let James too close and limited contact to hand touching.

We have started to develop a routine to our hospital visits, the bag is ready and waiting with the overnight essentials and last nights left over dinner is packed in a container to provide an escape from the hospital canteen. To those of you who have provided and continue to provide meals thank you so much. Good nutrition is the first casualty of crisis and we would no doubt have suffered the consequences but for your efforts.

We are hoping that the latest bout of fevers is in response to the platelets Cameron received this afternoon, if his labs come back infection free he may just get home tomorrow.