No More Heroin Tracks

Today was a very, very good day.

Both for Keanut and myself.

I'll explain why in a moment...

But first, my friend Melanie Clark was this week's date to the hospital.



 Kean loves Melanie.

 The nurses took his blood and his counts came back very low... just over 200.

(Remember normal is 1000 to 9000).

What is so interesting about his counts is that one week ago, he was at 330.  Then on Thursday

morning when we were lucky enough to visit the Emergency Room in the middle of the night,

his counts came in at just over a thousand.

Then of course, he was back down today.

Dr. Meeker told us that is not unusual... when he was sick, his body did what it was supposed to do

and kicked the counts up to fight off the Croup.  Once that was taken care of, he plummeted back

to his Chemo depleted numbers.

Suffice it to say, he is about where he should be during this part of his treatment.

Now for the really good news.

In fact, I can't decide if we should consider this a late Christmas present or

an early Valentine's gift.

Either way, this is huge.

Dr. Meeker took Kean off his Lovenox shots today.

That means I'm off the hook for giving him shots in his belly every morning and every night.

That means, our lives won't revolve around being home by 8:15 to give him a shot.

That means, his belly won't look like he's an addict.

That means we will no longer have a Sharp's container (for needle disposal) sitting prominently

in our family room.

I can't begin to put into words how happy this makes me.

I don't know who hated those shots more... me, the giver

or him, the getter.

We did end up heading over to the third floor for an Ultrasound

to see if the blood clot that started him on those shots clear back

at the beginning of August has dissolved or turned into scar tissue.

 Even though Melanie and I sang every song we could think of...

Keanut was not hip on holding still.

After several tries, the Ultrasound tech said he was moving too much

or tensing up and she couldn't get what she needed.

Lucky for us, we still get to stop the shots

and they will try to do the Ultrasound next Tuesday

when he is scheduled to go under for a Spinal Tap.

That is... if his counts are high enough by then.