After practicing accessing Eli's port the last few weeks with only mediocre results, I finally got a compliment from Eli on today's access. It didn't hurt him (or me) at all.
Tag: doctor visits
Sometimes I like being right and Celebrating a Milestone
If you managed to make it to the end of my last post, you may be wondering how things ended up with Noah. Let's start with Eli's milestone. Celebrating a Milestone A common event in many children's hospitals when a child has completed their cancer treatment is a bell ringing celebration. Eli officially finished his …
Continue reading Sometimes I like being right and Celebrating a Milestone
When Life Gives You Lemons
It gives you more lemons. Generally, things are going as well as they can possibly go, which seems to be normal for Eli since diagnosis. We met with the surgeon last week and took baseline xrays so we can track post radiation growth patterns in his left leg and foot. If you recall, because most …
Anniversary
One year ago on this date, I first took Eli to the pediatrician for what I thought might be a femoral hernia. It turned out to be a swollen lymph node with no other symptoms. The answer to all of the cancer questions the doctor asked was "no". It would be another 7 weeks of …
PET/CT Day
This time, Eli didn't eat anything and I remembered to give him a Zofran to, hopefully, prevent his throwing up when they make him drink the stuff before the scan. We haven't heard that the machine is down, so that's good. We are waiting for a port access, then we'll go downstairs to imaging.
“… so that’s normal”
I know you have been on pins and needles waiting for me to let you know what happened after the MRI broke. After the staff person told me that the MRI machine wouldn't come back up, the first thing I told her was that maintenance, routine or otherwise, should always be done at the end …
Best dressing ever
Since we were getting the MRI at a hospital that may or may not have nurses capable of accessing Eli's port, we had home health come and do it at home. It went well and the nurse left. Quite soon, though, Eli started complaining that it hurt. I tried to get a sense of the …
Limbo
This is end of treatment scan week. Murphy's Law seems hard at work. To start, I've been a little more anxious than last time and my usual equilibrium hasn't been as stable as I like. As with past scans, I've been avoiding making scheduling decisions for a couple weeks until I have the reassurance that …
Sleep
Eli finished another round of chemo earlier this evening. It is the second to last inpatient round before starting maintenance chemo, which is all outpatient. On one hand, I am feeling glad and relieved to be approaching that milestone in treatment and feeling grateful that things have gone so well. I didn't really know what …
More Scans
I am in a couple cancer related support groups on Facebook. One is for moms of kids with cancer, Momcology. The other is a group specific to Eli's type of cancer, Rhabdomyosarcoma. One common theme that comes up is something the parents in these groups call "scanxiety", the anxiety felt while waiting for the outcome …
Eli The Boss 