Does it get better than this?

Wed. morning 9 am appointment for blood counts - you know how that goes.....After dropping Jen and Dante off out front, I had time to drive downtown to the little bagel joint in front of the courthouse, park, order up some egg and cheese sandwiches, reinstall Carina into the car seat, drive back to the clinic, park, extract Carina, stroller, bag etc, walk from the ass-end of the parking lot all the way up to the front door, down the hall, into the office, where lo and behold, still waiting in the exam room are Jen and Dante. - We had time to eat half the bagel sandwiches before the nurse came in to take his blood.

Funny, we can wait almost an hour to be seen, but it only takes 7 minutes to do a Mass Spectrometer Analysis.

Wait, there's more.
"Well, his counts look great, so he will definitely be admitted today...." (finally some good news: ANC 8000!, WBC = 14.8, Platelets = 249. Two days prior he was at 1600, 5.7, and 92. Behold the wonder of Granulocyte Colony-Stimulating Factor) "....but we'll have to wait to hear from the floor when his bed is ready, so just hang tight in here, and we'll let you know." - 45 minutes and two tantrums later, we get to move to admitting, and eventually upstairs to our new room.

It gets better.
Now, we knew it was going to happen sometime, but as I mentioned before, we were already having a two-tantrum day, so we were a little on edge; when we find out that we have to share a room......
Now, many of you have kids, and some of them are toddlers and you know what I'm talking about; those of you who have older kids have blocked out much of this pain - like childbirth - but for those of you who don't know, having a 2 year old is a harrowing experience unto itself. Add to that the fact that he is tethered to an IV pole with 3 ft of surgical tubing and you have a recipe for a power struggle that makes Saw III sound like Weekend At Bernies 2. And by the way, meet the Nelsons, they just found out 10 minutes ago that their teenager has bone cancer, so maybe you could give them a few minutes....

Not to diminish the reality of their pain. On the contrary, the last thing I want to do is compound their misery by having my 2 year old throw an epic hissy fit for the next 25 minutes, while they contemplate the mysteries of the universe on the other side of the privacy curtain. I've been there. As recently as last week, in fact. So you can imagine my concern when Dante decides that no, the Elmo Button Book is no longer entertaining and he must have the New Elmo Button Book. Enter tantrum # 3....

Yep, you guessed it. It continues.
By morning there will be 3 more big tantrums, and if you count Carina howling in my ear for 20 minutes (she got her immunizations on Tuesday) in the Parent's Lounge (like I'm ever going to be relaxed enough to "lounge") while Jen put Dante down for the night, I think you can count 7 total on the day. During one of these tantrums, a case manager comes in to discuss the prescription for the home injections that we are supposed to give our 2 year old daily, but that will, I'm sure, be a whole other entry.

The Silver Lining.
By late afternoon we were fortunate enough to have a couple of the nurses and the Child Life Specialist advocate on our behalf to the Charge Nurse. Who was very understanding and fortunately, there was an open room and we were able to get moved in there for the night. Didn't stop the tantrums, but at least we weren't freaking out the new kid. Unless he could hear Dante down the hall....

....Oh, and they were able to start Dante's chemo at 5:30pm, so he was pretty much finished by bedtime. Didn't stop the tantrums, but at least the machines weren't beeping all night....

Currently.
We are in our third room in 2 days - we were moved, yet again, this evening. This bodes well though, for a couple of reasons: 1. Dante only had 2 or 3 meltdowns today and they were not of the Chernobyl variety. 3-Mile Island, perhaps.... 2. His new roommate is a cute little Ecuadoran girl who is very quiet and whose family speaks almost no English. They have been very accommodating as we squeeze into their room. 3. She is roughly the same age as Dante so if s/he does freak out, we all understand completely. 4. I think she's getting discharged tomorrow, (this may not bode well).

Closing Thoughts.
Does it, can it, get any better than this? Because I doubt it could get worse......















.....But I know that's not true.

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Maybe it's because we cut his hair...