Are we at it again?

Yesterday was quite a day. My mom had an appointment with her oncologist to see if she had hit remission. Well...awesome news...she has! Mom is in remission of pancreatic cancer! As soon as I get the news, my first thought was "good! one less thing to worry about! We may have a peaceful few months."

WRONG! Ric comes home from school and nonchalanty says " I think I have petechia." I look and it certainly looks like petechia. Called the pediatrician, went in...confirmed! Yep, petechia.  Blood is drawn and at 9pm she calls and says "No school tomorrow, anc is at 300 he can't get sick now."  Those damn white blood cells.

I was a bit taken by surprise cause last week his numbers were great, you know for Ric. That's how this shit works. One day you are fine, one day you have no neutrophils, or platelets or red blood cells. At least platelets are fine and I don't have to worry about him bleeding to death. We just need to make sure he doesn't get sick. I am waiting on my heme/onc to call to see if he will increase his prednisone dose again or what. I am almost certain we will have CBC's every week for the following weeks until we get him under control, again.

A friend asked me this morning how I was doing. All I could tell her was that I was pissed. I was pissed that the good news of my mom hadn't totally sunk in when Evans decides to fucking show up. Seriously! It had been and hour and 45 mins from good news that we get the next challenge. It's definitely keeping me on my toes.

I debated whether to send the other two boys to school or not today. I ended up sending them, cause I can't disrupt their lives too much. However, they know that as soon as they walk in they have to take a shower and be on top of the hand sanitizer. William asked if he needed to wear a face mask again, which totally breaks my heart because I know he worries so much. I said he didn't have to, but that hand sanitizer was a must. Jona looked at me with wide eyes and asked "does he have to go to the hospital again?", which totally breaks my heart again because this shit not only affects Ric it affects all of us. No hospital, as of now, I explained.

I keep thinking this time we all know what to do. This time it won't be so hard. This time it won't be such a shock. But, it kind of still is hard and a shock and the same damn roller coaster of emotions.

The truth of the matter is that bottom line, it is what it is and we have to deal with this forever. I choose to be strong. 

Reality

I don't think there is a better pic to describe how, we as parents, feel dealing with this shit we call Evans.

Ric's numbers are good. We have 3.1 wbc, 1800 neutrophils, 14.8 hemoglobin and a whopping 138,000 platelets! Whoohooo!!! Our Dr is happy with the numbers! Until I ask "how long till the chemo effects get out of his body and we start all over again?" 

Even though, I keep a positive outlook I still kind of live waiting for the other shoe to drop and waiting for shit to hit the fan again. Which, I know is not healthy. However, I don't think any parent of any sick child ever stops feeling this way.

Here's the latest scoop on Ric. The chemo treatment he finished in June killed all his B cells. The B cells are in charge of creating antibodies in your body. Antibodies help us fight the common cold, pneumonia etc. In Ric's body, B cells are also responsible for the evil antibody creation, which kills his good cells. Well, chemo killed all those B cells. Now, the B cells are growing back, which means we need to watch for the evil ones. Back in Nov he had 10% of B cell production. We are checking his B cell numbers again in the next 8 weeks.  His prednisone got dropped to 1mg/day, so he is basically unprotected if his body decides to create evil antibodies again.

I take comfort in knowing that, if shit hits the fan, this time around it won't catch us by surprise. This time around we all know what to look for. My mom said to me the other day "woman, those antibodies don't want to mess with you!". All I'm thinking is, I know I will get the energy to deal with it, if they decide to show up, but I really don't want to deal with it. I don't want Ric to deal with that again. I don't want my family to deal with that again. However, that is our new reality. HIS new reality. OUR new reality!

No matter how many dips on the road, forward movement is necessary to get to our goal....remission!  

To the evil antibodies I say this: Stay away cause you won't know what hit you if you mess with my boy, again!

Awkward moments

Every once in a while Ric asks if he ever has to do chemo again. Today, he asked again. My reply is usually the same "if we have to, we have to. It helped last time, right?" To which he always replies "right". 

It is still a little unreal to me that we have these conversations. It breaks my heart a bit every time he asks. But, I am sure it breaks his more. Keeping a brave face is not easy. I often wonder, if it will ever get easier.

Thank God for distractions and little daily victories, which are no longer little, but huge.