Monday Morning

Still here at home, still holding our collective breath. Logan made it through the weekend without spiking a fever, although he was clearly uncomfortable on Friday and Saturday. He had a rather icky-looking plaque-y white spot inside his right cheek (in the very location where he'd bitten the inside of his mouth Thursday evening) and wouldn't open up particularly wide so I could take a good look. We filled a prescription for Tylenol with Codeine and gave him a single dose, which effectively knocked him out. (And ostensibly, helped with the discomfort.)

Yesterday was marginally better. I took all three kids up to Adam's parents' house so we could help decorate their Christmas tree while Adam dropped off his blood at CHO and joined us a little later. We'd expected him to need platelets -- after all, his number had held steady at 67 on both Thursday and Friday so we'd guessed a big drop had happened on Saturday, since we didn't do a draw that day and since that has, historically, been what's happened. But nope: Surprisingly, the number sat at 45. Although that's 5 below the lower limit for Headstart Protocol kids with mucositis, the doctor on-call said we could hold off on a transfusion 'until mid-week'.

Adam and I gave each other a look over that one; we knew that Philippa would see the number this morning and immediately schedule Logan to come in. And we were right. She called right at 8:30 -- the start of her workday -- to say she had a space in the day hospital and that he should come in ASAP this morning for a blood draw and transfusion: Either just platelets, or platelets as well as blood. I'm guessing he'll need the blood, but we'll see. Hopefully and prayerfully, his temperature will stay down and he'll be back this afternoon. He ate a few bites of his bagel with cream cheese before asking for a bowl of cinnamon spice oatmeal. We've implemented a 'two main course food item' rule for meals in order to avoid a repeat of last cycle's '5 dinner' night. He ate roughly half of the oatmeal before complaining that the spot inside his cheek hurt. He told me to go get my flashlight and opened his mouth really, really wide. I knew from just that action that despite what it looked like and his claims, it definitely felt better. Prior to this morning, he hadn't wanted anyone to touch it and certainly hadn't opened his mouth wide and used his own finger to pull the cheek aside for me as he did this morning.

In terms of attitude and energy level, he's much improved today. Still whiny, but he didn't trip over his feet while walking or complain that his legs were too tired to do anything. And he showed distinctive moments of good cheer, uttering the word 'bagel' in his native pretend Ponow language and then giggling over the humor.

As for me, I'm more than eagerly awaiting #4's arrival. I'm done, done, done. I've gotten to the point that I can't sit up completely, I can't lie down and I feel sick all the time from the pressure on my stomach. He needs to decide to come out SOON or I'm going to go ahead and pick an eviction date. It's not my preference to do so, but we'd like some stability and predictability as we approach Christmas Day. With so many things up in the air it would be nice to just have little boy out.

So that's it for this morning. Thank you so much for your continued prayers, especially with all that we have coming soon: Baby, Christmas, the second -- and extraordinarily important -- MRI. They mean everything.