Ronald McDonald House (Day +20)

I have been a bit lazy about updating the blog lately, so this is going to be a bit of a "catch-up" post.

Let me start by saying that Cameron is doing VERY well!  We were discharged from hospital last Friday and we moved into the Ronald McDonald House.  Although it wasn't the same as being at home, it was lovely to have more space and more privacy!  Cameron immediately took off and explored every inch of the apartment, it was great to see him walking around - a little wobbily, but so happy!

We had originally planned to have James and my mom come and stay at the Ronald McDonald House with Cameron and I. Uunfortunately, James got sick AGAIN!  Nothing serious - just a cold, but we really can't have Cameron exposed to anything right now, so we decided not to let James come after all.

James has been getting sick a lot lately.  Since Cameron was admitted for this transplant, poor James has had strep throat, pink eye, a sinus infection and a cold.  We know that it is completely normal for a child to get sick often when they first start going to school - but it seems like James has been particularly susceptible to illness these last few weeks.  It has gotten to the point that Cameron's doctors have asked us to remove James from school, at least until Cameron has recovered from his second transplant.  Although he only goes to school 2 mornings a week, he seems to really enjoy it, so it's sad that he has to miss out on that now.  We are very fortunate that the firm that Frank works for has offered to provide us with a nanny two mornings a week, to help with James and get him out of the house a bit.  This has been a wonderful blessing and we are so grateful! 

Cameron had a follow up clinic appointment on Monday morning, and although his counts had dropped slightly and his nose was running a little , everything else looked great.  Of course, just as we start to relax, Cameron throws us a curved ball!  Just before midnight on Monday night he stirred next to me in bed, out of habit I felt his forehead and he was burning up with a fever!  I will never understand why fevers ALWAYS start either during the rush hour traffic period or in the middle of the night !  So, at midnight we headed to the emergancy room, which luckily is only 2 streets away for the Ronald McDonald House.  He was put on antibiotics, given some medicine to bring the fever down and they drew blood to see if they could find the cause of the fever.

All of his labs came back normal and by the next morning, Cameron was back to normal.  No fever, chatty and happy, as if nothing had happened.  I am sure this child just likes to keep us on our toes!  The doctors decided to keep Cameron an extra night, just to make sure that there was nothing wrong with him and so we are due to be discharged today.  We still have no idea what caused the fever, but his counts are on the way up again, so hopefully he will keep going from strength to strength!

As most of you know, I was fortunate enough to go home for the night this past weekend and spend some time with James and my mom.  I was also privileged to be able to shave my head in support of St. Baldricks.  Thank you so much to everyone who came out to support me on Sunday and a HUGE thank you to everyone who donated money to St Baldricks in honor of Cameron - I was able to more than double my original fundraising goal of $500 and thanks to all of you I raised $1,260 for lifesaving childhood cancer research!  The new hair style is going to take some getting used to - everytime I walk past my reflection, I jump -  I constantly think an escaped convict has broken into the house, and today I was called "sir" by the Starbucks person!

For those of you who are not on Facebook, click on the link to watch the video of me shaving my head:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6N8hBmjUajA&feature=youtube_gdata_player