I'll be home for Christmas (or at least when it looks like Christmas)!

It's been an eventful 24 hours.  We had been told on Saturday that MAYBE we could go home on Sunday (today) instead of Monday as we expected. Naturally after that Ollie was adamant that he was going home Sunday. We suggested a "have no expectations, but hope for the best" attitude, but pretty hard to make that work when you're 7 and desperately just want to go home. So Ollie and I decided to let go and let God and said a prayer asking that God help us to get home the next day if He could. 

Abby had a birthday party to attend Saturday afternoon, so I spent a few hours alone running errands and just being normal while Mario built Lego at the hospital with Ollie.

Being alone now is weird. Weird like when they were babies and I'd be out without them, a bit gleeful to just be me and at the same time feeling like I was missing my heart. At one point I just got a coffee and sat in my car alone thinking about the craziness of the last 2 months. You don't get a lot of time to process all of this when you're in it, and when you do have a few moments you're not sure you want to process it for fear that your positive attitude and determination to go forward will leave you and be hard to recover. Thankfully I had had a weepy day in hospital two days before when Ollie was nauseous and slept a lot, so much of what I was feeling bad about had been let go already. Crying is therapeutic and the kids and I are alike that way in that we need to let it out to feel better. 

So in this moment as I thought about what we had been dealt, for a few moments I let myself feel anger. It made me wish I had enjoyed that one kickboxing class a friend dragged me to years ago so I could kick the crap out of something. Fortunately for me anger is always fleeting and perspective comes easily. Yes, my son has lymphoma, but it is highly treatable, we have almost made it through round 1, the chemo has been blasting his bump to smithereens as Ollie likes to say and we are surrounded with love. Anger is an emotion best acknowledged and moved on from in my humble opinion.

Abby preferred to be home with me Saturday night, so we put on Christmas pajamas, watched chick flicks and wrapped most of the Christmas presents that I had thankfully bought for my little family many weeks before diagnosis. Again, so grateful that I am a planner and my mom taught me to shop early!

Ollie has a lot of anxiety around swallowing meds because he hates the taste and sometimes his gag reflex makes him throw up, but as I mentioned in an earlier post, Mommy is also coach now, so I had promised to be back at the hospital by 9 am to help control his stress and to help him be successful. When I got to the hospital it was confirmed that we were going home, we just had to get discharge papers, meds and final instructions. So Mario and I stayed with Ollie who had little patience and must have asked a thousand times when the papers would be ready. 

Thankfully Aunt Jenna, Uncle Vic and Mackenzie (from our chosen family here since we've always lived far away from actual blood family) had agreed to come and be with Abby to help decorate the house for Christmas since we normally do that the first weekend in December, but had already started chemo. Total troopers they climbed into the attic, dragged Christmas down and set it up beautifully. 

We finally got our walking papers, Ollie was disconnected from his IV and literally danced around in joy. "I'M FREE!!!" he sang and went to the bathroom without his IV pole for the first time in 11 days. It's the little things you miss. ;-)

After getting his meds (he has to take an antibiotic, an anti-nauseant as well as something to keep his bowel regular), we were homeward bound. 

His excitement was lovely and so needed after 11 challenging days. He identified landmarks all along to exclaim how close we were getting. Finally we were on our street and he was ready to jump out of the car before we even stopped. Aunt Jenna was out front creating Christmas. What a beautiful sight!

He ran into the house and grabbed his sister in the biggest hug I think he's ever given her. Christmas was everywhere and everything was finally right in his world. 

If that wasn't exciting enough, his sister had a special surprise for his homecoming. She and her classmates and friends had worked together to raise over $500 amongst themselves to buy Ollie a Nintendo Switch! And the dad if one of her dearest friends whom we are so grateful to call friend even went and bought the Switch for us to ensure it was there for Ollie' s homecoming.

Ollie was beyond excited and what an extraordinary reward for getting through the last 11 days of chemo and frankly, a long two months of stress and trauma. Abby and her friends were so proud to do this and we are grateful to all of their parents who contributed or as we understand it paid them extra for doing chores to raise the money. It was against my instinct to allow this at first as I didn't want it to be misconstrued as us asking for a gaming console for our kids because he has cancer, but am grateful that several of the kids parents asked me to let them do it because it meant so much to their kids to do something. I am absolutely certain that these kids are going to do great things in the world going forward because their kindness and empathy are off the charts.

We also had a few other drop ins from special friends and neighbours who wanted to bring us some festive spirit and to welcome us home. The hugs they bring are the best and we are so glad they understand how great our kid is, too!

Ollie is now tucked asleep in bed at home, exhausted, full of his favourite foods, a lot happier and infinitely grateful for all that is good in his life despite his challenge. My heart is overflowing. Love to you all!