Eli earned a pain bead today. In addition to physical therapy, the home health nurse came to draw blood. When she accessed his port, Eli told her that she put the needle in wrong (it didn’t look quite right to me, either), so she tried again. I thought it looked good, but when she tried to flush the port, she wasn’t able to push the fluids.

We decided to try a different needle, but Eli was pretty sure it wasn’t inserted correctly this time and when she started to push fluids, it hurt him a lot. At that point, she decided that it would be a good idea not to try anymore, with which we agreed.

Poor Eli was really upset and in pain. Ella consoled him and it was a tender moment for me.

We learned at his most recent chemo appointment that they have a program for the kids where they earn beads for all of the things they go through–a bead for each chemo treatment, a bead for a hospital stay, a bead for getting their port accessed, etc. Eli earned a painful experience bead today, one for PT, and one (maybe two) for having his port accessed. Mom should get one, too.