Fries are done

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Everybody Say - "Pneumonia!"

I was planning on writing a lovely update about our December and all the good news we had...









No more CT scans!
Blood work results were excellent!
No tumor markers in blood!
Only blood work from now on!

Then Dante comes home Friday with a low fever and a cough...that escalates to a 105.5 fever on Sunday night (and it would not break for about 5 hours)! We didn't go to the ER (as everyone has asked) because his behavior didn't seem to warrant it. Instead, we took him to Dr. P first thing Monday morning to find out - Pneumonia. We took him for chest x-rays and blood work. Man - does he freak out now when he has to get blood taken! He yelled for easily 4-5 minutes - after the needle was taken out. I'm sure it made all the people in the waiting room nice and relaxed for their turn.

Anyway, results show so far that he has viral pneumonia and that we just have to take it easy, give him a nebulizer treatment every 4 hours and keep an eye out for no fever. He's been fever-free for about 40 hours so far, so I think the worst is past. He's been in a super good mood despite all of this, so that's encouraging.

Carina has been fine but is now sleeping and starting to cough...looks like it might be another long weekend...I sure hope not!


We had our 3rd annual Celebration of Life party for Dante in December. We had tons of kids and lots of playing. They all found the sidewalk chalk and decorated the whole playset. They had a blast. Apparently Dante's best friend even asked if he could have his birthday party at "Dante's house." As a bonus we found that it's much more fun to have a playdate now that the kids are older - you can actually hold an (almost) complete conversation.


I met a volunteer parent at work recently and knew she looked familiar and friendly...turns out that she is an overnight nurse at All Children's Hospital. She was our nurse a couple of times and Chris recognized her name and description right away (since he stayed most nights.) It was really cool to talk to her, and hear about all the nurses that we miss at the hospital. It was also nice to let one of them know what a huge thank you we owe them for taking care of Dante - and us! She did say that Dante was one of the patients the nurses would "steal" or "try to get" because he was such a good patient; which isn't something you really think about when you're there, but it's nice to know we weren't on the opposite end of the spectrum...... except down in Radiology (who loves ya Amy?!) Anyway, she's an amazing parent and inspiration that I wish more parents would follow with middle school students - volunteer - get involved! (OK - off the soapbox)

On a bright note, Dr P said that Dante's ears looked clearer than ever!

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