Settling in....Chemo Round 3, Day 2

We spent the day re-acquainting ourselves with hospital routines.

Mouthwashes.
Eye drops.
Water cups labelled to keep track of how many are consumed.
Nudging to eat.
Timing and scheduling activities to keep ourselves busy but also restful.

A pretty level, mellow day for Sam. We spent time doing homework, and playing DragonVale & DrawSomething. There were many books read, and a lot of apples eaten. Zeyde explained many baseball references to Sam while they watched Angels in the Outfield together. (And um, explained what a foster parent is. Oy vey.)

The nurses have to stay in the room for about 15 minutes when administering one of the chemos. I put them to work. I mean, I give Sam a new audience.

Note: For the last TWO months I have been ordering whole apples from the food service and trying to cut them with the disposable plastic knives, since he likes sliced apples. Only in the last week did I discover that they have PRE-sliced apples (in those little baggies like you get at the Scottish Restaurant) and DUH! How much easier life has become. I also got a canister of cinnamon, which Sam likes on his apples, and now he can sprinkle his own. Voila...independence. Plus, no more hacking away with those silly little knives. Who knew!? Today he ate four packages of apples. Oy. It's almost like the Great Plum Day of Round 1.

The day was pretty mellow until a weird temper tantrum/meltdown right around bedtime. Which dissolved into some "I just want to go home" wails....oh, yes, Sam, I just want to go home too.

It's wearing, for sure. The back and forth and the nurses and the ordering snacks and the drinking water and the peeing in a jug and the lack of privacy and the medicines and the hand washing and the mouthwashing and the eye dropping and the bed sitting and the couch sitting and the chair sitting and the lap counting and the visiting and the reading and the watching and the playing and the BEING in the hospital....it's all wearing on us. The "fun" things are not as fun. Because we've done them. Again. So we read new books and tell new stories and watch new movies and sing new songs and write new journal entries and make new videos and play new games and find new ways to amuse the little patient who is less and less patient....but still makes fart jokes and asks innumerable questions and looks for mail and visitors and messages and waits for his dragon eggs to hatch and for friends to "draw him back" and FaceTimes and watches the videos of Solly playing with HexBugs or of his awesome teacher and classmates eating bananas ...and gamely tries all the crazy ideas that his mom comes up with.

Nothing that a bag of microwave popcorn and a half hour of the Smurfs before bed couldn't fix...for now.

And so we rest. The healing-yet-first-hurting medicines come in the middle of the night, too....but they are super-stealthy uber-quiet ninjas like we ask them to be and we barely notice any more. So the night beckons and Sam sleeps...and tomorrow is another day. And we're only at the beginning. We'll settle in. Before we know it....we will go home. Right?