Restful Day

Henry rested well last night. Since he's been home he's complained only a bit about his belly - we're not sure if he's hungry or hurting. Nothing sounds good to him to eat although he's sampled several things which we take as a good sign; a few bites of pancake, oranges, and an icy pop.

Tara's mother is here today cooking up a Thanksgiving dinner with all the fixin's. She's seeing to it that we don't go without turkey this year. We had a fire in the fireplace and did puzzles, a craft and of course, bundled up and rode 'Cruckie'.

Its a strange sensation being home now, nerve wracking in a way. In the hospital, there are all the resources you could possibly need. He gets most of his medicines intravenously there. At home, we're at the mercy of the medicine delivery and the home nurse, which are running late today. We have access to all the hospital phone numbers and such, but after the fever episode, it is unsettling being at home alone.

We've been so busy running back and forth and trying to keep him comfortable that today, with three adults and only Henry here, I'm a feeling some nervous energy. I hesitate getting into anything for fear of not paying close enough attention to Henry.

These fears are, I tell myself, normal. As the day draws on I feel myself relaxing a bit more. Which apparently we'll have time to do more of soon, as well as a bit of time to catch up on some household details gone unattended. The oncologist told us today that we won't have to be back at the hospital or the clinic until Friday next week. That's the longest time at home we'll have had since the day of Henry's diagnosis. I think they're still 'treating' us, understanding that recovery, both mental and physical, for all involved is necessary.

Our next step will be for Henry to have another central line put in for the singular purpose of harvesting his stem cells. He'll take four days of high-dose G-CSF in order to spur his cell growth. Then he'll be put under for duration of the actual procedure, approximately 8 hours long. Following this we expect to be admitted for our second round of chemotherapy. We're trying to catch our breath while we can.