October–Pumpkins, Horrible Hospital, Amazing Sister.

We didn’t do a whole lot in October.  But somehow there’s a lot of pictures.  We picked pumpkins.We Carved Pumpkins.We toured a fire station.Then Lincoln finished phase 4 of his treatment and I was so excited for a nice long break from medicine and chemo before he started maintenance.  I was guessing he’d have about 3 weeks of feeling good before his counts were high enough to start back up again.  I was wrong.  Only a couple days after his last round of chemo he got a fever and we had to take him to the hospital.  We ended up being their for TEN long days.  I feel like I could write 5 posts about all the emotions and experiences we had during that time.  In fact, I started several but never finished any.  To sum it up, it was bad.  Lincoln got really, really sick.  He just had a normal virus like anyone can get but because his immune system was so compromised from the chemo it hit his little body so hard and he had such a hard time fighting it off.  It broke my heart. 

His fever went down the second day, but then he stopped eating completely.  Eating as little as a couple peanuts or yogurt puffs would make him throw up repeatedly.  He became so weak and fragile.  He had 3 blood transfusions and they put him on a feeding tub.  The days and nights were long and he just wanted to be held in bed most the time.  Finally his body started to recover and his counts started coming up.   The last few days he started eating and feeling better.  

The one ray of sunshine during that horrible hospital duration was my wonderful sister Wendy.  She was already planning to come visit during that time (seriously put a damper on our plans), but it was such a blessing that she came.   She brought her baby did so much for us.  She made Lincoln smile, gave me emotional support, cooked and cleaned, brought surprises and gifts for Lincoln, and babysat and loved on Sawyer.  And then she stayed an extra 4 days and had to find babysitters for her other two boys in DC everyday in order to do so.  My boys love her and her sweet baby Bennett so much. 

Wendy, you’re amazing.  Thank you.  Now a few more hospital pics from when Lincoln wasn’t feeling so great.  I was so excited when he asked for mashed potatoes after not eating for a few days.  But then he just played with them.  At least it was a step in the right direction.  Look at his skinny little skeleton legs :(

I know I’ll look back on this picture in the future and be filled with so much emotion.  Lincoln and I have spent so much time in this position over the past ten months.  Just looking at it makes me tear up.  It was taken after a particularly traumatic experience in which I accidently stepped on his tube while lifting him up causing the needle in his port to be yanked out of place.  It hurt him so bad.  The nurses had to take off all his bandages and restick him.  He was hysterical.  I felt so beyond horrible.  Yet, when it was all done, he was so quick to forgive me and just wanted to “give mommy hugs”.  Soon he was asleep.  That’s one more thing I should thank you for Wendy - always capturing the moments.  Especially this one. 

Finally, Halloween. We were still in the hospital.  Major bummer.  But at least by that time Lincoln was starting to feel better and was able to put on his Alpha Pig costume (character from a PBS kids show “SuperWhy”) and go to the hospital Halloween event for a little while.  Sawyer came too.   He  was a monkey.