Day 24

The topic of the day was...discharge.

Eww, not that kind.  Get your mind out of the gutter!

We heard the "d" word for the first time this morning as a serious possibility for next week.  Woah.  I thought we were here til late July?!  What a great surprise.  Thanks to Ari's bacterial infection, he will need 7 days of anti-biotics after his counts all rise to normal levels and before they start plase 2 of treatment.  Assuming he remains healthy over the next few days, that means we all go home for this chunk of time.  This could happen as early as Tuesday (same day as the dreaded bone marrow test) but more likely we would be released during the latter half of the week. 

I will try not to get too excited because things could change at any point.  I won't think about my bed, my shower, my sofa, my hairdryer, or the prospect of beep-less nights.  And I definitely won't picture my little guy waking up in his own crib, going for a walk outside, or jumping in my bed in the morning to watch Sesame Street.  That would be a big tease if it doesn't happen.

But to prepare us in the event of an early D-day, we received a lesson in IV maintenence, medicine administration, and other ways to care for your kid with cancer. (My son has cancer. Is this a dream?)

That's our favorite nurse Stacy teaching us how to flush the IV line.  (And that's a fake arm.  I'm light headed already.)  I don't want to get ahead of myself, but I really hope this weeklong break does happen.  Even though we will have to return for phase 2 and then phase 3, it would be great to be home for a few days and nights of rest, relaxation, and reality TV. 
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Daily update:

Due to a serious of hospital oopsies, we did not have the CT scan this morning.  It has been rescheduled for tomorrow morning.  This means Ari is once again forbidden to eat after midnight.  Last night, he woke up at 3am and listed every food he could think of before I finally asked the nurse to give him a little benadryl which put him out of his misery for a few hours.  Tonight, we're going to try to rouse him at 11:30pm and feed him in an attempt to fill his little belly 'til the morning. 

The day was active.  Ari was on his feet a lot, in and out of the playrooms, searching for the robot, and even driving the big toy car.  But the best part of the day was the delivery of this edible masterpiece (thx isis moms):

I asked Matt to hold the cake so I could take a picture.  Ari very quickly snatched off Elmo's nose and took a big bite...

Then fed the remainder of the nose to little Elmo (who knew Elmo practiced cannibalism?)...

And then sugar rush Ari bounced around for a bit and posed playfully for the camera.

Could he be any cuter? 

I'm hoping for a good night, big midnight snack, and quick procedure tomorrow morning.