Round 15

Round 15 is officially over and Steven is home at last after his longest hospital stay yet--Tuesday to Saturday. I can't complain because some of the other cancer treatments involve month long stays, but still...that is a lot of hospital time. And the daunting part of it is that we are scheduled to go back again on Tuesday for round 16. My little kids had lovely days with friends and family this week, but still they were super needy when I got them home last night. Sigh.

I said he had a fun day yesterday, and here are some pictures to prove it. He got to go to a hospital carnival where he met Swoop and Cosmo and got their autographs. One man taught him a little about flipping baseball cards and Steven, the collector, decided he would start collecting baseball cards. (He has never watched a professional baseball game in his life...)





After the carnival, Steven also got to have Cosmo and Swoop come and visit him in his room. He got a squirt gun at the carnival and had been shooting the nurses. The nurses sent the mascots in armed with sringes and they had a little water fight. Steven thought it was great fun.



During our time at the hospital this week, my cousin's, daughter, Mary Kate, was admitted for Guillian-Barre syndrome. She was there from Tuesday to Friday, so it was nice to visit with them a bit. Steven was happy to let me go visit them in their room--he had lots of books, movies and video games that he was happy to consume without me bugging him about homework and physical therapy. I am sorry that Mary Kate needed hospital time, but at least their stay was timed well for my selfish purposes! She seemed to do be doing well, but will have a lot of physical therapy ahead of her to be walking well again. Jill (my cousin) and I were thinking of our grandma who would worry so much about her great-grandkids and we counted 7 that had logged time at the children's hospital. We couldn't help but wonder what our grandma must be thinking from her place in heaven.



On Friday afternoon, I brought Andrew up after school to come and play the wii with Steven, which really cheered him up. We also got to go meet Tim, the boy who had a rotationplasty the week before Steven. Tim showed us his leg and we were both amazed at how well he was doing with it. Hopefully it will inspire Steven to keep up his physical therapy so he can progress better.

So that is the news from here. We all have plenty to do to get caught up and ready for Tuesday. There is a chance that the next round will be delayed. His ANC is at 600 right now and it needs to be 750 by Monday. We will be praying for counts. There are only three rounds left now and even though that is a comforting thought, as we wind down, there are a lot more possible problems as his bone marrow gets tired and the chemo starts to take its toll.