Health Report

I forgot to post these yesterday but I am really loving the shallow kiddie area where the kids can swim and play and hang out before or after their swim class each visit. This area has made all the difference for us I think!

Yesterday Callum was all over the place. He even got brave and started climbing out and trying to jump back in - yeesh! He also tried on his goggles for a bit and experimented with those (several self-initiated head dunks!), which I figure can only help give him more opportunities to become comfortable in the water. :)

I haven't mentioned much about his general health lately but we continue to progress really well. The super nice thing about this phase is that we have a lot of downtime when we're not at the hospital for his high-dose methotrexate. And being summer, it couldn't be better timing for us to enjoy the time together.

There are still some downfalls (of course) to his daily chemo (since I do still have daily meds I must give him at home). The two most frustrating for him, I think, are the nausea (and sometimes accompanying vomiting) and the hair loss. :(

I've been trying to get better at proactively managing the nausea with meds in the morning and night, but in general, he still has nausea most days. I had some nausea when I was first pregnant with him and remember it felt just awful to always have that crappy feeling following you around - so I feel really bad for the kiddo. :( I think this general icky feeling has also led to some tiredness most days but it's hard to say.

The hair loss isn't noticeable to the majority of people, but his hair is definitely thinning everywhere. How this affects him, is that this also means his eyelashes are falling out constantly. And, for anyone who's tried to calm down a hysterical 4 year old who's arms and legs are flailing and pushing you away as you try to get the demon of an eyelash out of his clamped shut eye, then you can certainly understand how frustrating these events can be (really, for both of us). And they generally happen about once or twice a day, these days. :( Ugh.

Finally, not so much of a big deal to Callum, it seems, but something that I'm always worried about, is his constant cough and sniffles that he seems to be hit with. Just about the time a cough will clear up and he'll appear healthy as ever, one of us will come down with something or he'll catch something from who knows where, and we're at it again - constantly on hyper alert and extra vigilant about how runny is his nose, what color is it, how bad is his cough, is it productive or not, and the almighty question, does he feel warm/ have a fever? Even still, thankfully, we've seemed to skirt neutropenia most weeks.

It's a tad stressful but I know it could be much much worse so I try to keep my nerves in check. :)