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Chemo, ding ding, round two

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After a fairly restless night on the ward with Levi tossing and turning from some pretty bad dreams I woke at 6 am with Levi tapping his pillow and echoing “Dadda”… I was up from my bed and squeezing into Levi’s bed where he snuggled into me for another 30 minutes. When we eventually woke up there was the wonderful sound of the breakfast tray being delivered in the food chute (a cupboard that separates us from the outside world, I liken it to one of those little doors that you see on the movies that have prison scenes). Today was going to be a good day.

After polishing off all of his breakfast our team of doctors came in for the morning progress brief. We discussed in detail the events of yesterday and there was still a level of concern on Levi’s high temperatures and a requirement for him to maintain a preventative course of antibiotics as an infection from this point onwards could prove fatal. I was given the third degree as to why Levis feet had not graced the ground since we were admitted and in my defence I was not aware that he was allowed to run around the room let alone stay attached to the machine and several thousand tubes that are attached to his central line. SO once they had left we cracked out the circus tent, a gift from Jayde’s aunt and uncle Barbara and Frank. This was a definite hit with Levi immediately setting up shop in the tent and bossing me to laden it full of all of his toys. Fortunately after an hour of this play I was relieved by Jayde and was told to take some time, as in her words, I looked like crap.

After some brief respite it was off for chemo round two. Now for anyone that has gone through this already you will understand what this means, and for anybody that has to go through this my heart is with you. But to see the effects on a two year old that is unable to tell you what they are feeling or how it makes them feel, it is hard not to become emotional for the little people. My Dad constantly says to me that when it comes to kids having to go through this, that he wishes he could take the pain for them, those words hold so much meaning when you look into their eyes and see what this whole process means to them. Day two of this was marginally better for Levi, though it had the possibility to go south quite quickly with the build up of chemo accumulating in his system. It became apparent that Levi was looking to eat his way through this whole process and we can only hope that he continues to do this. With the nurses questioning us if what we writing on the whiteboard was actually what Levi was eating, the little guy had managed to pack on a kilo in just 24 hours and this time he was refusing to throw up.

After his dose of chemo, he was set on staying up to play and demonstrate to the physiotherapist how mobile and flexible he is, which pushed him past his rest time. So we had the luxury of an extremely tired Levi, with a double dose of fernergan under his belt, which ultimately equalled a very very very grumpy and inconsolable child. After close to an hour and a half, Jayde finally managed too put Levi to sleep using some ancient child whispering technique and we were not far behind him.

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One reply on “Chemo, ding ding, round two”

Love the tent, very cool hide out for Levi. 🙂 Glad he still has a good appetite. Soak up those snuggles Nate.

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