Day 26

Everything I thought I knew about hospitals, I learned from watching Grey's Anatomy.  There are residents and attendings, rounds and surgeries, and tons of unusal illnesses.  But I've been quite disappointed to find no hot male doctors, (okay, not exactly true...there was one in the ICU who we only met once, but he made a lasting impression), no steamy sex scenes in the kitchen or conference rooms (and I'm up at 3am cooking sausages so I would see it), no cool bar across the street where the docs and nurses hang out after work, and no specific doctor assigned to Ari's care. 

Just to clarify, Ari does have 1 main doctor who will be his primary caregiver over the next two years (and we lucked out getting the big leukemia kahuna).  But while we're in the hospital, we see a different group of residents and attendings every week or two.  I find it both exciting and frustrating because as soon as we develop great relationships, our doctors switch, and we begin anew with another team.  That said, we have loved every group of physicians, find the residents young and brillant, the attendings warm and wonderful, and the nurses extraordinary.  And, contrary to what you see on TV, the nurses do almost all of the daily procedures while the docs do a lot of Q&A (and the occasional listen of the heart with the stethoscope).

Until today, this experience was nothing like an episode of my favorite medical drama.  But this morning, we found ourselves on a TV set!  They told us we would be assigned a new weekend attending doctor, but as it turns out, Dana Farber producers cast Lea Michelle as the role of Dr. Allison O'Neill, pediatric oncologist.  She walked into our room, dressed as a beautiful young doctor, my jaw dropped, and I was star struck.  Rather than ask for her autograph, I snapped a pic and was granted permission to post it here. 

She was such a good actress that she wouldn't even break character for a second.  I asked her all about Glee and the Emmy's and her favorite fellow actors, but she just wanted to talk medicine.  I couldn't get anything out of her except some memorized lines about white blood cells and neutrophils.  I'll try my hardest to get some juicy Hollywood scoop from her during her "rounds" tomorrow. 

Gotta hand it to Children's Hospital...they really pull out all the stops to make the kids and families happy.
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Daily update:

I'm officially over the steroids.  Ari is hungry, indecisive, and schizophrenic generally quite moody.  He wants and then doesn't want, he wants to "go" but doesn't want to go, and he has trouble falling and staying asleep.  The steroid highs still highlight our days but these always occur after 7pm (and last until we give him Benadryl.)  And as excited as I am by the chub returning to his cheeks and thighs, I'm ready for a night when I don't have to wake up and prepare him a second dinner (and often an early breakfast).  I'm sure the hospital is ready too, since Matt almost burned the place down at 4am microwaving frozen pasta for waaaay too long.  (He came back to the room stinking of camp fire.)

The little guy is steadily gaining weight and I'm pretty sure he's retaining water due to his high sodium diet.  Here he is with his new favorite food:

He finished that entire bag in the last 24 hours.  You'd be smiling too.

I can't believe our 30 day induction phase is almost complete.  Only a few more days of 'roid rage to go.  And fingers crossed this is not a case of the terrible two's!