Brian's IVIG

This morning Brian went to the clinic to have his port accessed and labs drawn. From there we walked to our floor in the hospital to be admitted. There are not many perks to being a kid on chemo, but at Sacred the oncology patients have a special unit that is a cut above the normal peds floor. Here is the doorway into the Oncology Unit. Notice the hospital floor in the first picture then you will notice in the following pictures the oncology unit is a bit nicer and newer. When we were admitted last year there were only six rooms. They have expanded to nine rooms. Brian remember that he had the red room last time. This time we were in the light green room. It was funded by Publix. Perfect room for us. Only thing that could have been a bit more "schreiber" would have been a Chick Fil A room or a Target room.  :)

Notice the ceiling tiles are painted by kids. They let their patients paint a picture and write their name on it.

Brian was all smiles and peeking out to see what crazy mommy was taking pictures of.

This is the playroom for the nine oncology rooms.

Here are Brian and Mommy sitting in the chair because Brian was SCARED of the bed.

Still in the chair.

Mommy's mission today was to get Brian over his fear of the hospital bed. He saw the Chipmunks movie and there was a scene that was in the hospital. Apparently Dave gets smashed in the bed because the chipmunks stepped on the remote and it made it go up and down and closed, then flat. Brian was convinced that he was going to be shut in the bed. He investigated it for a while then decided it was OK, but he didn't want to be on the bed if he didn't have to.

Brian tolerated the IVIG very well and was able to have it administered as fast as they could pump it in. They upped the dose of the infusion every 30 minutes. If Brian was to get sick or lightheaded, etc they would drop the amount down the the previous dose. Well, Brian never minded the increase and was able to have the infusion in a little over four hours.
   When he gets his port flushed he can taste the saline and he HATES it. He always asks for one of us to plug his nose.

He hates having the "sticker" removed.

We were discharged from the hospital and home by 5:40 PM. Brian took both his oral chemo meds tonight and didn't mind it one bit. They are both strawberry flavored. Because we are getting the chemo drugs made into an oral solution we have to go the Pensacola Apothecary to get them made by special compound pharmacist. Apparently not every pharmacy can do this because they need a special hood to vent the fumes, dust or whatever is expelled during the process of compounding the meds. This is so the pharmacist doesn't accidentally inhale what we are intentionally giving to our four year old. It's crazy how something can be very harmful to one person but helpful to another.
   Thank you for praying for Brian Robert today. The day went very well (for Brian). He's a trooper. His older sister didn't have such a great day. She gave our babysitter quite a bit of trouble. Not to excuse her horrible behavior today, but she is just six. She is not doing very well at handling all that we are going through. I know this is a public blog, but it's also our journal to remember this time. I don't want to paint it as super cheerful and rosy when it isn't. Times are stressful. Just to top it off my dishwasher died last night. Like I said stressful. I can guess what I'm getting for Christmas this year.

 Please continue to pray for our family. We appreciate all the prayers and e-mails of encouragement.We love you all.