Or maybe not even that, but trying to figure out why the hell you are having such a damn vivid dream, and how you can't wait to wake up and return to life PER USUAL. And call Oliver, and say, oh my gosh, I just had the CRAZIEST dream, I am so glad you are ok. I have pretty vivid dreams, so I keep thinking that this is literally going to happen. And I'll crack up and say, and you know what else is hilarious? In my dream, I actually RESTARTED MY BLOG. AND BLOGGED ABOUT YOU! YOUR STORY! How funny is that? And I talked about a hazmat clean up situation. And chemo. And you came to live with us again! And your mom and oh my god I love your mom! I need to call her and get to know her better under these normal circumstances- why didn't you tell me how cool she is? And all of these vivid details that are so gross there is no way they are reality.
But... alas, I am fairly sure this is not a dream. It's so surreal that I say that and I say I think it's not a dream, but my head still struggles a bit with that notion.
Yesterday morning marked Day 8, chemo treatment in so it was a 6am morning to get to SCCA (Seattle Cancer Care Alliance) by 7am. Luckily, we were all able to sleep better than the night before and Oliver was comfortable.
He was nauseous yesterday, but managed to eat some bagel and drink a fair amount of tea. Yes!
On the way to the center. A father's love holding on to him.
Meanwhile, I looked at my phone and looked at the memory that popped up! Just the memory FROM the teenage years! Oliver was 17 and Owen was 1. How cute are these guys?
Also while they team was driving to Seattle, I was getting my other guys out of the house. The older one (Owen) had his last day of school as a kindergartener! This also messes with my head a bit. We have a FIRST GRADER now! Holy cow! And I managed to stealthily catch a real smile from him.
And back to the weird fake smile.
First day of school for comparison sake. He's grown A TON. Both of them have. I didn't dig out the board.... mom fail. Honestly, the thought of trying to find where I put the markers was overwhelming. So whatever. He's done. He's a great kid, with or without the board.
This is about the best I could do. Each grade in the elementary school had to wear a certain color as they "moved up." Kindergarteners had to wear white... who has the littlest guys wear white? I wanted to see how long it took for all of them to destroy the white. Ha!
Meanwhile back in Seattle, Oliver had had bloodwork done and was meeting with the doctor. The key points that were relayed to me: his heart rate, blood pressure were good. His labs were good with only a 2% deficiency showing in his vital organs (which I guess is "normal.") He has lost 10 pounds in a week, where there was not much to lose (140 to 130), but no one seemed alarmed by this. They are adjusting the plan for round 2 so that he hopefully starts to feel less pukey and starts to eat more so that the weight loss stops. They also called in a new anti-nausea med to add to the mix immediately. They said that mostly the first round of chemo is figuring out how the person's body is going to react since everyone responds differently. Oliver's obviously is NOT happy. Some people I guess don't even really feel side effects, due to the right mix of meds. So we are just trying to figure out the right mix to offset the chemo. We are also going to be talking to a social worker just to make sure that Oliver's mental health is a-ok. This is a lot for anyone to handle... in particular a college kid. The doctor also apparently mentioned several times how awesome my spreadsheet was.... there is no better compliment to a dorky accountant.
After meeting with the doctor, back upstairs to floor 5 which is the infusion floor!
He was feeling a lot nauseous yesterday, so was rolled around in a wheelchair as walking was tough.
However, after meeting with the doctor, they continued to emphasize even just a little bit of movement. So poppy immediately converted to personal trainer poppy. Made him walk a little bit...
And also made him do some exercise. I guess Oliver was laughing saying I can't believe you are making me do this. Justin would say: "Show me your quads. Show me your calf" And did some light movements for a few minutes. His favorite workout client right now.
They got back to the infusion room- a window room this time!- and Oliver ate a little bit of oatmeal. Yay!
Right before the infusion started (a shorter day, at approx. 3 hours versus the 8 from days 1-5), Oliver got an Ativan, which is a drug that calms him down and helps with the nausea. Also completely knocks him out. I guess he started to feel the impact within 5-10 minutes and was just like "oooooh Ativan...." Ha! Colleen and Justin said that in this time frame of it kicking in, they saw a spark in his eyes we haven't really seen all week. Which is good!
And, night night, thanks to Ativan!
After treatment, and headed out.
View from the room.
Meanwhile back on the east side, at around noon, I was experiencing an epic mom fail. To give some history, I am ANAL about being there early to pick Owen up from school. I have some weird fear of people leaving me, and so I always harassed Justin to get there early every day for pick up, or if I was picking him up, I was always there early. ALL YEAR! I was at an appointment in Kirkland and got a call and thought, "Hmm, that looks like Owen's school." Had the thought, oh man, he's sick or something. "Is this Owen's mom?" "Sure is." "He's in the office and no one has come to pick him up."
Uhhhh.
APPARENTLY THE LAST DAY IS EARLY RELEASE. OMG. Also, !!!!!!
I am 40 minutes away from school. Justin is in Seattle. Oh shit. Called a couple people then had the thought that our neighbor would be home and called her. Totally saved us for the second time this week, as she was happy to go down and grab him and fed him lunch while they waited on me (lunch that I had packed him...that he didn't need).
Can I just say: I went back and looked at the email that outlined the early release (since I swore I had seen it nowhere, and had zero clue) and it was freaking BURIED in the last line? BOLD THAT CRAP! Like twice! Or maybe TEN TIMES! For us moms that are barely holding it together and SKIM and don't freaking READ THE LAST SENTENCE! Also, early release is SO STUPID. I HATE early release. What is the point of having the kids go to school for 2.5 hours? Ok, off that soapbox.
Anyway, I got home and got Owen and team Oliver followed shortly after. Colleen and I ran to the store to grab a few things as well as to get Oliver's new meds. When we got back, I was off to pick up Bennett and then to piano lessons for a couple of hours. I got home and Colleen was making some soup for Oliver, and Justin and Colleen had also made Oliver a shake which included fresh juice (that they had also juiced while we were gone), protein, fruit, spinach, etc. Guess what? He actually DRANK THE WHOLE THING! He drank and ate more yesterday than he has in the past week, so we feel like we are really getting a handle on his meds and a cycle that seems to help him.
Oliver also had a couple of visitors yesterday in his aunt Stephanie/Uncle Brett, and his girlfriend Lexi. None stayed too long, but I know he appreciates the thoughts and pop ins.
Before bedtime, B-nut wanted to say good night:
Oops...bit of a flash. Sorry OG.
All in all, yesterday was a pretty good day. We felt encouraged by the doctor that we are doing the right things, and are on top of his care. And we felt encouraged that THEY are really trying to get things right to get him as comfortable as possible and that day 6 should NOT occur again. Fingers crossed. We were also encouraged by him eating, and seeming more like Oliver than he has all week. He was joking around more, more alert, and didn't have as much of a vacant look yesterday as he had in days past.
It really seems like we are making progress here. We are not quite 1/4 of the way through chemo, but we are starting to figure some things out. We are hoping that the doctor is right in that as we near the end of cycle one this week, things get even better and cycle 2 is MUCH better than cycle one. While we all expected this to be brutal, I think I speak for all of us in saying it is much worse than we could have imagined, BUT there is hope in the upside. #oliverstrong
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