Monday Morning Chemo

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Pablo wrote the line above. When he finished typing, he handed my Blackberry back, and asked, 'What does it say Papa?'

We aren't sure what it means, but we had some belly laughs making up silly words out of that string of letters. Please feel free to offer a translation.

Today was a quick day at the Oncology Clinic. We snagged an apple juice and a biscuit in the CHLA lobby. None of the food at home sounded good to P - it only brought on tears. The suggestion of a lobby biscuit brought a smile to his face. So it was an easy stop for us to make as we cruised thru the lobby.

Once we arrived at the clinic, we got our file and his ID wristband. A few minutes later, we were in triage getting weighed (16.9 kg - up from 16.7 kg), blood pressured and tempted. A few minutes later, we were in a treatment room, getting P's port accessed. Once the line was in, our nurse, Jamie, drew blood for his labs, flushed the line with Heparin, and then injected the skinny vial of Vincristine.

On an average week, we'd have his port de-accessed and get outta here. Today, we are hanging around for an hour, until the lab results come back. We are fairly certain Pablo will need either a blood or platelet transfusion. You can tell by looking at him. And his body is covered with bruises from this weekend's play. No matter how many times we encourage him to slow down, walk not run, etc, it's impossible to avoid the bruising - or the falling, tumbling, skidding. When P's white blood cell counts are as low as they were this weekend, I love playing games with him, or watching a movie. Anything involving sitting still.

We had two marathon Uno games this weekend. One with Grady on Saturday, and another with just me and P on Sunday. That one lasted 90 minutes. Insane. In my kooky brain, I figure any block of time he's not scampering around the house is well spent.

Speaking of time well spent, I am headed down to the pharmacy. We need more Lidocaine, the white cream that numbs the skin above his port so he doesn't feel the needle stick. When we do our family's 2008 Best Of list, Lidocaine will deffo be in the top 10, along with In N Out cheeseburgers and Scooby Doo, caffeine, Dr Mascarenhas and all of you.