Sick to...real life

Almost 2 years ago I was sucked into this new unknown world. A world of spoonfuls of applesauce every night with crushed pills on top. A world of hospital trips, timed meals, and blood counts. I have to arrange schedules according to doctor’s appointments and spinal taps. I need to be aware of borderline low ANC levels and activities Yousuf is engaged in or sick kids who he is around, and whether that is a threat or not. I have a middle child who demands a spoonful of applesauce along with Yousuf’s (minus the medicine) almost every night. The spinal taps were tough but I was used to the procedure and the pacu waiting rooms. I’m dreading his upcoming spinal tap by remembering the last. With other kids growing up, every day normal life is already difficult, now I have to juggle Yousuf’s treatment along with it.

Last doctor’s visit Yousuf was infused with his vin cristine in a new way. The clear liquid has been confused with the other chemo drug, methotrexate (which is shot into yousuf’s spinal cord during spinal taps). If vin cristine is injected into the spinal cord it is fetal. Some hospitals have been known to make the mistake between the two drugs. They now put the vin cristine in a clear square bag and hold it above the nurses head and let gravity infuse the medicine into his port-o-cath. A tad bit more time consuming but better on the body, I assume. I was ready to grab a snack in the eating lounge but had to step over a stack of towels covering throw-up. Once I sat down to munch, back in the T.V. room, the little girl next to me vomited all over herself. This medicine doesn’t belong in their bodies, I thought to myself, but neither does cancer.

No matter how drastic and sucked up in the sick world I am in the hospital, real world issues and life take over as soon as I exit. My other children demand my time, love and attention. They don’t cut me any slack knowing that Yousuf’s next spinal tap haunts me or that I was stuck in the hospital all day dodging piles of throw up and shedded hairs on couches. I have to stretch myself out…just as all the other parents in that waiting room have to do. A little more than a year to go. I must get through it.