Day -21

Good morning! Today is going to be a busy day. We have chemo over 6 hours and a blood transfusion over 3 hours and during that whole time they have to do vital checks (blood pressure, O2 sat, heart rate and temp) every 15 minutes. We also have all the scheduled meds plus a few extras. But at least I am happy now.

I like to live on the edge. I have decided that because I can't have anything I really want I am going to make sure that I get to do everything I can even if it makes mommy nervous. He likes to stand in his crib when the rail is only part way and if I try to hold on to him or put up the rail he yells at me. This is a new and crazy attitude we have since we started all these meds. The nurses here call it "roid rage". Aiden seems to be really sensitive to the steriods. They had to put him on some high blood pressure meds and he has seriod induced diabetes (not permanent) it just means that the steriods make his blood sugars high. They will go back down after they back off the steriods on Sun. This is all totally normal and they are treating these symptoms as needed. Just part of the process. I am really grateful it isn't forever and they are on constant vigilence to treat these things.

This is his wonderful new friend and constant companion. Today it has four different punps running all sorts of meds into him. Our great nurse has to check vitals every 15 min and it has been a struggle and Aiden is really unhappy about it. He even bit me three time. I have been banned from the room because when I am here Aiden wants to nurse continuously for comfort and it is frustrating him that he can't. So...poor daddy has to deal with it. I got to go make cards at the "ICS parent break hour" and read my book. While this may sound great and it was nice, I felt bad that I couldn't be more helpful.

After a really long 5 hours the chemo is done and Aiden calmed down a little. We even brought out the big guns "coke" to try to make him feel better but he really wasn't interested. He finally took a short nap and that seemed to help calm his down a little.

Enough so that we could enjoy some yogurt! He is really loving the vanilla thick and creamy yogurt by yoplait.

Yes, mommy was allowed back into the room!

But now I want to DO

IT

MYSELF!!

They are pumping him full of so many fluids that he has so many wet diapers every day and he pees out a lot. So after the yogurt fiasco and peeing out we had to have a bath and change clothes. Then Aiden was really content to hang out in his bed and push all the buttons on the hospital machines. Luckily the nurses think he is SOOOO cute and were willing to ignore the beeping at their station. He ate a great dinner of spaghettios (the whole bowl) and passed out from exhaustion at about 9:15 pm after all of his nightly meds. Thank goodness cause now mommy and daddy got to take a little walk and a break and BREATHE! Can't wait for tomorrow. We talked with the docs and nurses about giving him some pain meds to help with the sadness that we had today. I guess a couple other side effects are headaches and body aches. You and me both buddy! Really Aiden is handling everything so well and it has been awesome that we haven't seen any side effects from the chemo! We can deal with some cranky!