1st day of counts!

I am seriously a horrible blogger!! Graham has been doing really good this round...he got a couple of VERY minor mouth sores and had fevers for just a couple of days, but they didn't end up being any kind of infection so went away fast. Today he finally had some counts!! His ANC was 200...it will probably bounce around for a few days and as soon as it's steady we will get to go home for our little break. I feel like this has been Grahams recuperation round. He has been able to progress and work on a little catch up. He is still behind on his development, but we are working on it. He is working on sitting up right now and we are still doing the tummy time stuff...which he isn't a huge fan of. Still doesn't take a whole lot by mouth...chews on the nipple of his bottle, dry heaved when I introduced bananas and still does after many attempts and now he isn't wanting his rice cereal because he thinks it's bananas!!! I also tried carrots and he hated those as well. Today I gave him a teething biscuit and had to force it in his mouth...once he tasted it he actually really liked it. He chewed and sucked on it for a while...I was amazed. Maybe it's been the texture that he doesn't like??? Who knows, but we will keep at it.

We finally got to stop his Lovenox shots!!(blood thinner shots from his liver clot) Happy day for me....and I'm sure even happier for him!! His poor chunky thighs are always so bruised up and it's hard to find a place to give him one. He had another ultra-sound and everything came back looking great so that's that!....I hope:-)

Today is day 29...this was suppose to be one of the harder rounds and it's interesting that it has ended up being Grahams easiest one. The doctors said that this round is an average of 31 days...we will most likely be going home in the next few days...they really have this down to a tee.

Graham is starting to really show that he is a normal baby...what I mean is he is throwing baby fits...he gets mad and arches his back and throws his head, he is FINALLY starting to NOT like his lazy-boy....AKA bouncer, and he really let's you know what he wants and does not
want. Just today he started shaking his head back and forth like " no, no, no" it was so funny and cute. I'm very grateful for the baby fits etc....it makes things/him seem more normal. He has such a cute little personality and the best belly laugh. He looks JUST LIKE SAWYER when Sawyer was Grahams age. They have different eyes, but other than that they are their daddy's sons:-)

Our next...and FINAL round is a little different. We will come back and Graham will have 2 days of chemo and then they send us home and we wait for his counts to drop to zero. They say this usually takes about 5 days. Then we come back for a few more days of chemo and then of course the waiting game. So it will probably be the start of November when we finally finish. Never thought we would make it...it felt like such a long road when we started this and almost not do-able. But, here we are....almost!!

After we are done it will be of course routine check- ups. Since Graham's leukemia is in his skin it will be pretty much impossible to "know" if it is coming back or completely gone unless it shows up in his marrow or he starts to develop the skin lesions again. I hope I don't go crazy analyzing every inch of his body on a daily basis! Good thing he is still young enough that he cant object...otherwise I would go crazy if I had to leave it up to him to do this himself. It's stressful not being able to look at the results from his bone marrow aspirate and know for certain that his Leukemia is gone. If he gets a pimple in here they biopsy the thing just to make sure it isn't anything more.

Before I was married I would have never thought that my married self would be such a worry wart...then I had kids! I'm sure many people can relate...or at least I hope so:-) Both of my boys are winter babies so I have always been very cautious and nervous about all the bugs that float around during the winter months. I have always been terrified of RSV and have gone maybe overboard to steer clear of my kids getting it. Then Graham gets leukemia...just goes to show how little control a person has. I mean you do...but at the same time you DONT?!

I'm not exactly sure what I'm suppose to learn from this...but I do know a few things I will do differently. Maybe in another post I will tell you. For now I'm just so grateful for a good round!