Together, Fed and Funny

We're all "home" (at least our temporary one in Toronto) together again! Happy to report that it was the shortest hospital stay he's had yet, at only 48 hours long. 

Yesterday while Ollie was killing time waiting to be released, Abby had her third of five injections of the G-CSF. 

She's learning like her brother that you spend a lot of time waiting in hospitals.Yesterday it took two hours because we had to wait so long for the injection to be sent up from the pharmacy. 

The nurses are super nice at Sick Kids and the atmosphere in clinic this weekend was pretty relaxed considering we're in the middle of a pandemic. On the weekends the clinic changes locations so we've now had an opportunity to see 8A, 8B and 8D in action, too. 8B is the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit where we'll be for 6-8 weeks after transplant. 8A is where Ollie was this weekend for oncology.

Finally the injection arrived, we froze Abby's arm and got the job done quickly with no fuss. For a girl who was afraid of needles, Abby has now had 7 pokes for her brother with 3 more to go and has really conquered this fear.

She has had some significant back and hip bone pain as well as a major headache yesterday, so we know that it's working and pushing those stem cells into her blood stream. We've managed the pain with Tylenol and the heated magic bag (thanks again, Toni/Mrs. H as it's the gift that keeps on giving!). She has shown a shocking ability to handle the pain gracefully considering she's always been the drama queen who wailed every time she got a little bump when she was younger. My children constantly surprise me with their adaptability and acceptance of what must be done to heal Ollie. 

After her injection yesterday, Mario and I switched, so he went home with Abby to rest. The deal was as long as he didn't get another fever (hadn't had one in more than 24 hours) and no infections grew in the blood cultures by 11 pm last night, he could go home. Generally I would have preferred that we stay overnight and leave in the morning, but Mario and Ollie were begging for him to be home, so I went along with it. 

Ollie was anxious to go home all day. We tried to pass the time being silly.

And telling jokes, which I am notoriously bad at because I always mess up the punch line, but that makes Ollie laugh anyways.

He did get out shortly after 11 pm last night and we all just crashed when we got in and slept in this morning.

I took Abby to the hospital today for her fourth injection without incident and then she and I went in search of a real grocery store nearby since we still cannot get a delivery or click and collect slot until next Sunday. As it happens there's a Metro that did not have a line up to get in and is almost across the street in College Park on the other  side of the park.

So we put our masks and gloves on, did our seek and destroy shopping mission and got back to the condo in no time. Our general practice is to remove all clothes after getting home from the hospital, wash hands, put clean clothes on and immediately wash the ones we took off. I also disinfect all groceries and remove anything we can from outside packages and immediately take them to the refuse room. It is a lot of work, but we can't take any chances.

Ollie was content to be home with Daddy playing Beyblades and he had a visit from the home care nurse to show us how to flush and hepronize his new broviac central line in his chest. Just like the PICC, we are learning to do it ourselves so we don't have to rely on home care and can reduce exposure to the outside world that way.

One terrific by-product of Ollie having cancer and Abby being his donor as well as the pandemic that keeps us away from friends and family is that the kids have had to rely on each other for support and companionship. They now have a real appreciation of each other and know how lucky they are to have each other.

She takes care of him as she did when he was just an infant before they learned to fight. 

We put fuzzy dots on the black connect 4 pieces today and she taught him how to play even though he can't see. This way he can differentiate between the black and red pieces.

These two also gang up on me to get what they want now using the sad little sick kid eyes.

And laugh when I call them on it.

Ultimately we're doing well, happy together and hoping for a good week of stem cell collection from Abby on Tuesday and mainly rest for Ollie until late next week when his radiation in prep for his stem cell transplant begins. 

A friend of faith pointed out that Ollie's transplant is now scheduled to happen on April 16, which is the feast of St. Bernadette who is the patron saint of the ill. Her name means, "brave as a bear", which we agreed is perfect for Ollie.