"No Kitchen Patrol" Doctors orders!

Today was "Vincristine" day.  Zack started a soar throat yesterday, has been having headaches and is pretty much tired of not feeling well. We are greeted by Ms. Perky herself, Angie. She is always so cheerful, even with her father undergoing chemotherapy and not doing well. She always manages to have an awesome greeting, smile and hug waiting for us. When we walk in the door, it is just like coming home to family, only with lots of needles, bags full of fluids, a scale, arm cuff , thermometer and bags full of colorful fluids with a bright yellow labels marked Biohazard.  But I digress...

Angie does a swab of Zack's mouth. Their concern is strep. There are also signs of Thrush which is not uncommon with this treatment. She inserts the needle into the port and begins with his treatment. Once the  treatment is complete, the results are back from the swab. He does not have strep, but does have thrush which could turn into sores and become painful. We received a prescription for two mouth rinses to help in the healing. (we later discover that they taste horrible and though they are meant to help,  Zack is not thrilled with the immediate results of loosing his dinner). Doctor B came in today. She is the female Doctor of the trio and is a great with Zack and the other children under their care. Zack's number count came back very low, so no going out in public places, no one around him that could possibly be sick and lots and lots of fluids. We are also told to take his temperature if the headaches continue and if it is 100 or over to call them immediately. We were originally scheduled to return on Friday, but now must return on Thursday morning for possible blood transfusion, (also not uncommon). We won't know until they do his blood work that morning.

Once the prescriptions are called in ,we are free to go. On our way out the door we are all teasing Zack at the nurses station. Doctor B looks at Zack and says "take it easy the rest of the week, do your schoolwork, but no dishes!!" I look at her and she immediately says "No No No, I was just kidding", we all get a good laugh and I tell him of course he can take it easy.

We stop at the pharmacy only to find out that one of the medicine's needs to be mixed so it will take a couple of hours. While picking up lunch on the way home, we stop by to say hello to one of our old friends from Scouts, Jason G. He asked to come out to the car and say Hi to Zack if he promised not to breathe on him (funny but sad at the same time)  It's nice when Zack can see some of the old gang.

I drop Zack off at home and head into work for a couple of hours to prepare for tomorrow (the first day of work since last week Thursday). It felt good to get back to the office, to get everything ready. I organize some of the insurance documents, clean up and head out again to pick up the completed Prescriptions.

What could have been a $300.00 prescription turned out to be $35.00 because of the new insurance. It felt so good to hand them the card and know that a large portion would be covered. Zack had asked for some different drinks, (when you drink nothing but water all day, so need some variety) so I pick up Gatorade, a quick dinner and head home.

Though I didn't do a lot today, I feel drained both emotionally and physically. I wasn't able to make it to the Hospital to see my friend and her daughter. They are keeping her daughter in ICU for another night. We wont find out the results of any damage to her heart for a couple of weeks. I was worried about being in that environment and catching something. My friend being so understanding tells me to "look out for our boy" and "I'll look after our girl".

No news on Big John, so we assume all is the same with him. The rest of the kids went to see him last night, so I'm sure he had a wonderful and full day .

Big John and Frank