{SQT} Watching and Waiting

Cycle week 2, in which we were told that the doctor "would be shocked" if Thomas did not need a blood transfusion and in which he had a 75% chance of getting an infection to land him in the hospital was one of seemingly doing normal things on the surface while Mama and Daddy were watching our baby like hawks the whole week.

1. Weekend

Thomas weaned off his anti-emetics and felt much better over the weekend.

Always holding his emesis bag during chemo weeks

Before the lovely soaking rains, Margaret planted my spring bulbs for me.

Thomas created this cardboard box mask in order to dress up as Chewbacca.

Margaret did a painting kit.

We mostly stayed home from Mass, only sending Dad and Oldest Son. Thomas's risk of infection is extremely high this week, so we were not going to send younger children into a crowd (just more prone to pick up everything out there) and I needed one of the top two kids to stay home with me as an emergency standby babysitter.

On Sunday night, we once again hauled all the children out of their beds for a tornado warning and spent 45 minutes in the tiny powder room downstairs. We were safe!

2. Monday

Mama is back in the house and back to supervising school! Let's just say that transitions are never easy.

Mama and the older kids took a tour of Regina Caeli Academy, which has a center just 3.8 miles from our home. How could we not at least tour it to consider for next year? It is beautiful and has much to offer.

Playdough fun

A dear aunt sent the boys a fabulous National Geographic book about bugs and an explosion of bug finger puppets. It is proving so much fun!

A fall crown for Mary: "Thanks for protecting us from the tornado warning!"

Thomas is struggling increasingly with all his medication requirements, which we hope is a temporary reverberation of having to take medication every three hours around the clock for a week of chemo. But on Monday he was back to only twice daily yet he refused for an hour to take his (easy!) blood pressure medication. 

He curled up in a ball and said, "Mama, today is the day I stop doing brave things."

My heart broke.

Refusing his medication

Refusing his medication

3. Tuesday: Clinic Day

I packed for Thomas's clinic visit with more intention that we would probably be there all day, the oncologist having said he "would be shocked" if Thomas did not need a blood transfusion. Well, Thomas's numbers did not merit a transfusion, so we came home promptly and I taught my regular homeschool day! 

School, in-home music lessons, lots of playing outdoors in this gorgeous weather . . . 

Thomas's labs showed that his ANC was on its way down, presumably to zero, so Chris and I felt nervous when Thomas fell and skinned his knee outdoors. What would foreign bacteria going straight into his bloodstream do?! He received a bath and Neosporin.

Handsome caterpillar found in our yard

4. Wednesday

This was Day 10 of Thomas's cycle, when the oncologist said that many of his kids "like clockwork" develop an infection, something he said Thomas had a 75% chance of doing. I may have looked calm on the outside, but I was vigilantly watching Thomas.

We arranged rides for Mary to attend Mass and Fidelis and John to attend hockey, so we could have two adults at home. No infection for today!

Did our homeschool and music, watched our neighbors having a massive tree cut down, ate cookies delivered to us by said neighbors, played outdoors lots, and made pine cone bird feeders.

5. Thursday

The day began with Mama delaying school one hour for a Whole Family Clean-Up Event in my (I hope) righteous anger that people don't seem to put toys away in the garage, so it is a dangerous mess all the time, such that I regularly think I will trip and Thomas actually did trip and land on something, getting a bruise (his chemo makes him much more prune to bruising). Let's just say, now I could practically host a party in our garage, it is so neat and clear. (Not that I think it will last!)

We enjoyed a regular day of school and lots of playing outdoors in the beautiful weather.

At one point, I told Thomas I had to help another sibling with Grammar for a while and he said, "That's okay, I will do school all by myself. Where is my art book?"

In the afternoon, the girls participated in the second Clemson Science lab class for homeschoolers ages 8-12, this time studying the properties of water. It is really an excellent class in which they run through numerous experiments. Mary, in particular, is enthusiastic about the class and called me over repeatedly to see what they are doing.

At dinner, we had a scare with Thomas because he was complaining of headache and had a temperature of 100.0. The magic number to go to the hospital is 100.4. Over the next hour, his temp was in the 99s, and then it was normal all night, although he had unusual, tearful wakings and complained of headache again in the middle of the night (headache is a symptom I was told to watch for indicating he might need a transfusion). Friday morning would have us contacting the office as soon as it opened to inquire whether he needed to be seen.

When Thomas lays down to sleep, he sets up his St. Jude statue and his St. Jude electric candle (out of the picture below, but definitely burning right next to him).

6. Friday

Thomas woke up feeling fine and acting like his old self, so his oncologist's office said we did not need to bring him in to check labs again.

Normal school, tons of outdoor play, afternoon attic organizing by Mama, evening ice hockey for John . . . .

 

7. Bonus Reading

• This article explains why the PCR test is exponentially too sensitive the way it is being used to declare "cases." If the PCR test were set at the appropriate number of cycles to identify contagious people, 85-90% of positive cases would not be considered so. The Fog of COVID-19 Data: How many cases aren’t even cases?
• The two states just below us--South Carolina and Florida--are fully open and without mask mandates, so we pay attention to how they are doing. No Spike in Florida Coronavirus Cases Despite Lack of Enforceable Mask Mandate
• Out of England: Flu and pneumonia STILL kills ten times more people than Covid
• I'm no scientist and I don't know for sure what to think, but it is increasingly easy by the month to find reputable sources explaining why masks don't work. Masks Are Neither Effective Nor Safe: A Summary Of The Science
• Meanwhile, 47 top worldwide scientists, which I don't think anyone could call crackpots, authored and signed the Great Barrington Declaration calling for an end to lockdowns as an utterly ineffective way to deal with a virus. As of today, 27,000+ medical practitioners, 10,000+ medical and public health scientists, and almost 500,000 citizens have signed. One has to keep asking, are the critics truly all wrong? Really?
• More info helpful in considering California's new decree that all vehicles must be electric instead of conventional within a decade: (1) There is not enough cobalt, lithium carbonate, neodymium, and copper in the world to produce enough EV vehicles just for Britain alone to rid itself of conventional vehicles. (2) Even if the EV is driven for 90,000 miles and the battery is charged by cleaner natural-gas fueled power stations, it will cause just 24% less carbon-dioxide emission than a gasoline-powered car. As the skeptical environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg puts it, “This is a far cry from ‘zero emissions’". (3) EV are only affordable by high-income households.  The Dirty Secrets Of ‘Clean’ Electric Vehicles

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