The Consolidation Blues

Hey, faithful readers. I'm sorry we never posted yesterday. Don't worry. We're struggling--let's be honest--but we're fine.

Our trip to Burlington on Thursday was long. Katie received platelets and red cells. Her cell counts were not as low as they have been, but she was symptomatic (she wasn't herself), so the doctors chose to err on the side of caution. "It's the Ara-C," they all said, nodding sagely. Loose translation: The subcutaneous shots Katie received apparently contain some potent toxins, and they are doing what they have to do--they retard rapid cell division--but they are also wreaking havoc with Katie's cell counts. No one was surprised. Doctors and nurses knew what to expect. They are not concerned in the least. This is normal. We just didn't see it coming. When doctors told us that we would really love life at the end of induction, they were right. We thoroughly enjoyed the return of our typically energetic Katie, and we chose to assume that life would resume its normal course. That was dumb. As it turns out, consolidation isn't all that easy on most kids either. I don't know what we were thinking.

To further complicate matters, Katie has a cold--a normal, everyday run of the mill cold. I spent most of Friday pushing her to eat and to drink. She just didn't want very much. The good news is that Katie is eating and drinking relatively well today. Do you remember the day she ate 28 fish sticks? She declared her belly full after just one fish stick and a half this morning. What a difference! Because she is eating something today, though, she has more energy, too. She has been painting, and she just covered the television in playdoh--there are lots of yellow gobs where Bambi's little face should be. We are learning to take this phase of treatment one step at a time. Katie will travel to Burlington with Rick on Monday, and doctors are already preparing to give her platelets before the last scheduled lumbar puncture. The further good news: This is our last scheduled lumbar puncture for several weeks, so there won't be any hungry days for a while, so Katie won't roll into Grandma Kathy's house quite so desperate to eat.

On a funny note, Grandpa Heart has learned to cook chicken nuggets and tater tots. He also thought to bring me a yogurt in the hospital the other day, and that was good. You would not believe just how much junk we are eating these days. Someone at Lake Region makes really good oatmeal raisin cookies. I would know. Katie still doesn't want much sugar, so I have to pick up the slack where cookies are concerned. Fortunately, the kind folks at LR contnue to stock our freezer, so we haven't had to prepare anything more complicated than taco salads.

We did sit down for a family dinner last night, our first really positive family dining experience in some time. We told the kids all kinds of funny stories they would not remember about their early days, pouring in extra rations of love and attention along with the ham and the pasta. It did seem to be working until I was foolish enough to empty the dishwasher by myself. Josh, who was talking to my parents on the phone, discovered that I had continued without him and melted down. This has been so hard on him. Mrs. Trevits tells me that he continues to behave admirably at school and that he prays for Katie every day. We are so fortunate that he has this time for daily meditation. He is stressed out, though, and we are working to support him through daily temper tantrums that are really awful. When he stopped crying last night, he made me promise that I would wait for him to unload the dishwasher. We agreed that we would make that OUR CHORE--time for the two of us to connect while putting away the silverware. This meltdown clearly didn't have much to do with silverware. And we do try to make opportunities to connect with Joshua. We simply cannot fill the bucket quickly enough. I will try to spend some quality time with him today (pizza?!), and Rick will take him skiing tomorrow. I hope these gestures will help. We have also decided to find him a therapist, someone who can teach him strategies to use when deep breathing just doesn't cut it. There is no way of knowing, of course, but I am curious about how this madness will affect him many years from now. This is a life changing event for him, too.

With any luck, spring will come, and we can leave the house for daily jaunts that should lift all our spirits. I am desperate for glimpses of the sun. We all listen carefully for evidence of birds returning to the Kingdom. Keep your fingers crossed, friends. It's only March, after all, and we still have several feet of snow in the front yard. Sigh...

On a positive note, we want to thank my mom, who let us both go back to work last week. Thanks to my parents for keeping us company in the PPR on Thursday. Thanks to Rick's parents and to Heather, whose cheerful telephone calls keep us going. Thanks for your comments on the blog. Thanks for the money you are all raising to cover the cost of gas and to get us out of that (very expensive!) parking garage. Thanks to Suzanne, who sent Katie a Dora pillow and a Dora blanket--she loves them! Thanks to Nana, who continues to care for our horses and for Joshua. Thanks to the good folks at LR, who understand that our children come first and who continue to employ us anyway. This isn't a particularly fun experience, but you're all making this much easier than it could be, and we are grateful.