Even bad days can be blessings...

This guy didn't feel great today and spent a lot of time in bed. The smell of the meds were making him nauseous, so he chose to wear a mask.

Yesterday was good. Ollie was full of energy, played hockey, had a good first lesson with his new teacher, and an online video chat with his class at St. G.

Playing hockey with Dr. Chancy

First lesson with Reg with some reading and math. Only 40 minutes a day to keep up with his class.

Mario came at dinner and stayed the night with Ollie while I went home to be with Abby. It's hard being away from Ollie because as much as I know he's in good hands, I feel like I did when he was breastfeeding and I needed to be close in case he needed me. Neither of my babies were good bottle takers, so I was rarely away from them for more than a few hours when they were infants. 

Being home with Abby was a joy, although tough too because I had to get things ready to go back, so my time with her is never without some obligation. Ironically my time at the hospital is more focused because I don't have to plan beyond the next hour, don't need to worry about laundry, or emptying the dishwasher or any other thing than getting my son well. So Abby helped me do laundry and empty the dishwasher and we snuggled and watched tv together. So many of you have reached out to spend time with her, take her to special events, sent her special gifts and shown her extra love and I am so very grateful for your help in mothering her through this.

Coming back to the hospital was difficult because I want to be with my boy, but hate leaving her and Mario and I are like two ships passing. Several of you have kindly offered to be with the kids to give us a break, but when you're in this, especially at the beginning of chemo you need to be with them. Mario and I have always been united in our belief that we can make time for us, even with the kids around. Thankfully we had a good date night out without them the weekend before Ollie's diagnosis was confirmed. 

Today was harder. Ollie was tired and listless all morning and didn't want to leave his room. He had his second lesson, but was tired. He started feeling nauseous around lunch so they have him Gravol and he slept all afternoon. Watching him I felt like this is what I expected the last 7 days to be like and maybe his real chemo has begun...his doctors and social worker say it's possibly just a bad day and not to worry about it. By dinner he was begging me to order him Gabriel's pizza (how could I not?!), ate 2.5 pieces and made a new friend.

I had noticed a boy closer to Ollie' s age on the floor earlier and suggested to Ollie maybe he'd like to play hockey. We found him, he's 9 and was glad to play. He has leukemia and has been on his journey for 18 months so far with about the same amount of time to go. He talked candidly to Ollie about losing his hair, how it grew back, how he'd now had 3 infections and had to come back for a few days (exactly why they're not allowed to go to school or be around a lot of little friends during chemo) each time, how he was glad he could finally go back to school and hockey this year and how you get used to all of it in no time. I was so grateful for young N' s help today in normalizing things for Ollie. They could relate to each other and Ollie could understand that he'll get through this and his 8 months by comparison, is so short. 

So we have an aggressive form of lymphoma that responds super well and fast to treatment (the bump is already so much smaller) and has a high success rate. In a crazy way we were also blessed in the type of cancer that he got. We won the cancer lottery! 😜  Sorry...bad dark cancer humour...

We also had a special unexpected visit from extended family tonight that meant the world to me, too and lifted our spirits. So the day that started bad ended way better than expected.