Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Chemo 9-5-12

Brian started his chemo week yesterday. In true Schreiber fashion the week is not without some drama.
 
 We started the day early as we had to get Brian's blood work done before we headed to Classical Conversations at 9:00. Because of the holiday, our Monday school met on Tuesday this week. We typically do blood work the Friday before a chemo week, however, this past Friday, in an effort to complete school assignments before we headed to the lab, we ended up not getting blood work done. I didn't realize the lab closed early on Fridays. Oops. That's what I get for making school a priority.  :-)
 
So, Tuesday we headed to the clinic at 8:00 AM to get some blood work done, then went to our CC day. After school we headed back to the hospital for Brian's doctor appointment and chemo at 1:30. Several days ago William was sick and his cough has lingered (mostly at night), so we made an appointment with his pediatrician for 3:30. We wanted to make sure there wasn't anything we should be doing for William and didn't want to put it off another day. As it was, we had already put it off thinking he would get rid of that cough soon enough. William hadn't been sick the last few days, but Sunday night and Monday night were not good nights of sleep for William as he was constantly hacking and coughing.
 
Tuesday afternoon at 1:30 we saw the oncologist, got Brian checked in on the infusion side, had his port accessed, then waited. When the chemo drugs still had not arrived by 3:00, William, Olivia and I left Fred, Ansley and Brian at the hospital and headed to the pediatrician's office.
 
Olivia was a goof and having a great time in the waiting room. William was having a good time taking pictures. I felt silly sitting in the sick waiting area because clearly my kids were not sick. :-)
 




 
 
When we got back to our room we waited a while. The doctor was busy and since they were working us in I didn't mind the wait. Olivia, William and I had read about seven books when Olivia wanted to sit on my lap. She sat quietly at first. I assumed she was tired from the long day. Then she started getting whiny and fussy. She felt like dead weight and was hot.
That's when the pediatrician came in.  I told her we were there for William's lingering cough, but in the last thirty minutes of waiting Olivia had gotten sick! Sure enough, Olivia had a temp of almost 102. I am sure she has whatever William had.
 

 
 
We love our pediatrician and she took good care of both kiddos. We got home just a few minutes after the other three. Brian did well through chemo and was excited for us all to be home.
 
 
With sick kiddos, Fred worked from home while I took Brian to chemo at 8:00 this morning. The pharmacy didn't have the chemo ready so we played until it was ready a little after 9:00. We were home by 10:00 and Fred went off to work. The drama of today is that I have come to grips with the fact that my AC in my van is out. It has been faulty for the last several weeks, working off and on at random times. For some reason it decided to bite the bullet and quit putting out cold air altogether. We will take it in and get it fixed soon, but this week we need our transportation. Thankfully it isn't too hot. It was kinda nice to drive around with our windows down today.  
 
 
One of the things that Brian did this morning to pass some time while waiting on the pharmacy to get the chemo ready was draw pictures. There is a golf tournament next week and I believe it is to raise funds for Nemours. I was told they like to give pictures drawn by the patients to those individuals that donate money. Brian was asked to draw a picture about golf and to write his name and age on it.
 
This is what he came up with:
 
 
It was so adorable. I was so proud. When I told Brian that Miss Erin (the Sacred Heart employee that asked him to do it) would love the picture he looked at me and said, "Nope. This isn't for her, this is for Daddy."
 
We're going to have to get it framed for Daddy. It's a special picture. So, I asked Brian to draw a different picture we could give to Miss Erin for the fund raiser and he drew the picture below.

Sweet boy!!!

Please keep praying for him. This is the dreaded day two that always makes him sick. We are praying that if he is going to get sick it will be in the next few hours so we can go back to the clinic rather than the ER.  :-)

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