Daniel's counts weren't bottomed out yet when they discharged us last time. Three days of an upward trend had everyone thinking they were, but a week later I went to the local lab to get a CBC to see if his ANC was over 750 and his platelets over 75 so we could start our last month of chemo before he hits maitenance. I was betting we would be right around 750, maybe a little over, maybe a little under. I sat in the packed waiting room for twenty minutes with all the sick zombie people, willing the germs to stay away from us and counting on his numbers being high enough to enable him to fight off all the sinister viruses flying around us. After getting the blood draw, on a whim, instead of turning toward home I turned toward downtown and drove to Fairgrounds Park, the park with the most fun all in one spot. Big sand areas, multiple play areas, all sorts of places for kids to leave their plagues and germs. I was hoping it would be deserted, but there were actually quite a few people there. But I let him play anyway. Stopped him from licking his toy car after he unburied it from the sand. Saw him lick the slipper slide. Wanted so badly to let him play with the little girls his age. After all, how low could his counts be after all this time of having continued their upward trend?
Turns out, pretty low. That afternoon, our nurse called to tell me his platelets and hemoglobin were both excellent, but his ANC was 31. Keep him away from other kids, she said. Be extra vigilant with hand washing. Don't let him be exposed to anyone who is sick. So then I felt like I was pretty much winning at parenting a kid with cancer.
I freaked out a little. Scrubbed the house down, got extra crazy about germ patrol, and sure enough, a day later the low grade fevers started. It took three days of bouncing around in the monitor-only range (99-100.4) before it finally broke 101 early Thanksgiving morning and we had to take him in. I woke up anout three am to a hot little body sleeping next to me, and I knew he would be over 101. I just didn't want to have to get up and deal with it. So I lay there between my sleeping babies, gathering my energy for about an half hour, then reluctantly got up and took his temp with the new ear thermometer Bobby had bought the night before so we could stop the axillary temperature taking fight. 102.1.
Since Bobby would be needing to leave the next day for New Mexico, I drove down to Denver myself with the two babies over icy roads, got to the ER about 6:30, and was admitted by 9:30. Daniel's ANC was zero, so they started antibiotics, since his body has no way to fight a potential infection, thus not affording us the luxury of waiting 48 hours to see if his cultures grew anything. Bobby got here around noon, and we had a lovely Thanksgiving here in the luxury suite. Again, with the new post-cancer definitions. We would not have defined a day in the hospital as a lovely day in our former life. But now that we are more aware of the alternatives, it is much more easy to be thankful for the fact that we are here together. Safe. Cared for. And did I mention together? Who wouldn't trade in all of the standard Thanksgiving traditions for the ultimate blessing of the presence of a loved one? Only every single person who has lost someone they love.
Yesterday morning the resident assessing Daniel heard some crackles in one lung. Fearing pneumonia, they put him on droplet precautions, aka isolation, lest he start to cough and spread a virus through the halls outside our room. Bobby left for Carlsbad, New Mexico, questioning with every mile he drove further away from us if he should even be going, lest Daniel take a turn for the worse. With an ANC of 10, it was hard to make the call- we need the money, but with counts this low, our every move is stalked by the specter of sepsis. Ten hours away is not a great place for a daddy to be if Daniel suddenly ended up in the PICU. I finally made the decision for him- we can't live putting everything on hold, expecting the worst. And I own a pair or two of big-girl panties by now. Whatever happens, I will be wearing them. I won't just fall apart. At least not in the moment.
By last night his lungs were sounding clear again, so this morning they removed the droplet precautions and let us out of the room. We didn't let the big, heavy door hit us in the behinds. We hit the halls and ran up and down them, me with Alex on my back, pushing Daniel's IV pole. We played the color game, me naming the color of every thing Daniel touched, then, the next round, asking him which colors they were. We counted the red cars in the parking lot below. Then Alex fell asleep on my back, his head rolling around at dangerous angles, so we came back to the room to try to lie him down, which was a spectacular failure. But then Daniel heard a little girl shrieking and playing in the hall and desperately wanted to investigate, so back to the halls we went, where he and the little girl made laps, she on her tricycle, him pushing a little plastic lawnmower.
^ I may be a truly horrible person. After many attempts at getting Daniel to relax enough to perhaps nap, offering to read to him, just sit and rock and nurse, and being emphatically told "No! No! Nononono!", I took the room's stethoscope, which he is obsessed with, and hung it up high on the IV pole knowing he would see it up there and ask for it. Then I could tell him he could not have it right now and break his fragile heart. Because he really only has one cure for a broken heart- cuddling, rocking and nursing. And there is almost no way he would be able to fight the sleepies once he had cuddled and nursed himself into a relaxed state. And I am not proud to say it happened exactly like I hoped. He saw it, I said no, he fell victim to a tragically broken heart, he raised his arms to me and tearfully asked for boob, I held his sobbing little body close, rocking and nursing, and he was asleep within ten minutes. Desperate times call for desperate measures. This afforded me the opportunity to wear Alex on my chest and walk the halls of the 7th floor until Alex succumbed to the snuggles and also slept. And finally, two hours of blissful silence.
Which is where we are now. They are beginning to stir, but so far the room is peaceful. I know I should be sleeping instead of writing, lest they afford me no sleep tonight. But clearly, I like to live dangerously.
The fever has not returned since Daniel's last dose of Tylenol wore off four hours ago. His ANC was 50 today- on it's way up. Cultures are still clear at 48 hours and counting. As soon as the fever has been gone 24 hours and his ANC breaks 100, we can be discharged.
In the meantime, Dr. Alpert brought by an embarrassment of riches- a feast, all the deliciousness that weighed down their Thanksgiving table. I have been inhaling the delicious every time I feel even the slightest hint of hunger. Daniel and Alex have been quite impressed, as well. Alex tasted his first green bean salad, cranberries, and stuffing, and I think it is safe to say his world will never be the same, now that he has been introduced to such culinary delights. He threw a fit when the spoonfulls stopped coming at his face, even though his tummy was so full he was grunting a little as he slouched in his booster seat trying to breathe. Kid takes after his mom, who knows this feeling well. Daniel was nine months old before he was even curious about "real" food, and he was over a year old before it was more exciting to him than breastfeeding. But Alex...Alex thinks "real" food is the clear winner here. Breastfeeding has it's place- in the middle of the night, or any time we are too sleepy to sit up and shove real food in the mouth. But when we are awake, mom should know that no self respecting man wants breasts shoved in his hungry face when there is tasty solid food to be had.
Which may be a problem for us. I am holding my breath that we do not have to be admitted after December 1, because no siblings under 13 years old are allowed here after that date due to flu season precautions, unless they are exclusively breastfed. Which he technically isn't, as of now. But I have nowhere to leave him, and his separation anxiety wouldn't allow me to even if I did, and as delighted as he is over having discovered real food, he still gets about 90% of his nutrition from nursing. If we do have to be admitted, I'm going to have to throw myself on the mercy of the head nurse and plead my case extra hard. It's just not going to be an option for us to split these two up. At least not without it being a major upheaval in their lives and one of them having to wean. 
Before I sign off, I should mention that the dreads, the freak out of last month, is pretty much over. Processing is such an inexact science. I am back to being all optimistic and grateful, knowing we are so lucky to have the diagnosis and prognosis we do, knowing how overwhelmingly the odds are in our favor. I'm not sure what that was. Probably the freak-out I should have had when Daniel was diagnosed, deferred for six months. Nobody accused me of not having to do everything completely backwards. But the important thing is, I let the negative feelings and the fear in, I let myself feel it, I let them do their worst to me, and it turned out, it wasn't all that climactic. It passed. Optimism won. At least for now. I'm happy again. Maybe it was the hormones. Maybe it was the shock of seeing Simone's family lose her, their tsunami of grief, and the realization that if that should ever happen to us, we would never be whole again. Maybe the shell of optimism I wrapped us in from day one just got a little thin after having been chipped away by the exhaustion all these months. But as of right now, I am back to feeling happy. In love with my life, in spite of this holding pattern it is in right now. Filled as it is with spousal squabbles, since the two "adults" in this situation are so perfectly unsuitably suited for each other, and the gears that make us tick just can't quite always manage to whir along in mechanical perfection. There is adoration for each other, laugher at ourselves and happy baby giggles in the family comedy that is our life right now. The feeling that although things would be tragic if they weren't also so ridiculous, we'll be just fine. Obligatory if.
And now the big one is crying in his sleep. He'll be awake soon. My quiet time is over. Time to get back to parenting. Love to our faithful few. You make me happy, and I'm thankful for you.
(Update: fever is 103.8 upon waking. So we're not checking out of the luxury suite tomorrow anymore!)
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