Day 40

Today we made a new friend.

Meet Chester.  (Get it?  Chest-er.  It took me a while.)

Chester has a picc line in his right side (your left).  That's basically what Ari has now but it comes out of Ari's arm.  And in a few weeks, Ari will have a central line placed in his chest that will stay surgically implanted for two years.  It will look like Chester's left side (your right).  Nothing can be seen.  So Ari will be able to play/swim/bathe as normal.  Pretty cool, huh? 

During our central line 101 tutorial, Matt asked if they had a female version of Chester.  Typical.  The nurse took him seriously.  Typical. 

Then this happened...lookin' good honey! 

Do you think the nurses will let me cuddle up with Chester tonight?______________________________________________________________

Daily update:

The 24 hour chemo started at Noon so we were able to take Ari outside for the morning.  The day wasn't nearly as long as I anticipated.  Ari had some lunch chips, a long nap, and then played all afternoon in his crib.  I think the meds have him feeling a bit off (not that I can really tell since he's still awake and having pretend phone conversations with his stuffed doggie at 9:55pm) but it made it easier to keep him inside all day.  He will still be hooked up through tomorrow morning and then we just wait for side effects to appear (yuck) and the medication to clear from his blood (yay).  Once it clears, we can talk discharge again.  

I refuse to even think about the kids who clear the drug in 4 days.  I will expect Ari to take 3 weeks.  I'm not gonna jinx anything.  In fact, I'm starting to like it here.  The diapers are free.  The scrambled eggs are pretty good.  And the cleaning people are here daily.

C'mon clear the drugs in 4 days puh-lease.