Eric and I had a great visit to Prince George to see Grandma, Uncle Jon, Auntie Becky and most importantly, Lily!
Chuck and Joel had a boys weekend at home. Eric and I got back to town Monday afternoon, just in time to celebrate Chuck's birthday on Monday evening.
On Tuesday morning, Eric got a ride to school in a police car courtesy of Cops for Cancer. Cops for Cancer raises money for pediatric cancer research and to fund Camp Goodtimes, a medically supervised camp for kids with cancer, their siblings and families. Their big fundraiser is Tour de Coast (or Tour de Valley, Tour de Rock, Tour de North, depending on where you live) which will take place in September. Currently the participants are training and fundraising and they enjoy meeting some of the kids and families that they are supporting with their efforts. I think Constable Neil enjoyed it almost as much as Eric!
With Eric's busy social calendar, it was difficult to fit clinic in this week, but luckily they are always so accommodating. Eric ended up going to school just until recess on Tuesday after arriving in the police car. I picked him up and took him to clinic where he had his port accessed, bloodwork and a platelet transfusion. Annoyingly, his nose did bleed on and off throughout the weekend in PG, but his platelets weren't TOO low, for him.
Eric had to load up on platelets on Tuesday because his class had a field trip to the new Mundy Park outdoor pool on Wednesday.
The class walked to the pool, but Eric caught a ride with Kim, who also took the picture - thanks Kim! He played and played at the pool and then walked back to the school (since it was downhill, he said.) I drove up to the school on Wednesday to pick Eric up thinking he'd be tired from the field trip. I parked on the street and went to the front of the school to get him. Walking back to the car with Eric, he stopped and pulled the door handle of a white car. I said oh sweetie, that's not our car and we kept walking. A few steps later I stopped and said OMG that was our car! 🤦 So just in case you are wondering how my executive functioning is, the answer is poor! I told Eric I lost my marbles. He said he couldn't lose his because they were in a jar in his closet. However, when I asked to borrow them, he refused!
Eric did also go to school on Thursday and even had a couple of friends over afterschool. Having just started a new round of treatment last week, I really didn't expect Eric to be feeling up to all these activities this week, but looking forward to the ride in the police car and swimming helped him rally I guess.
Eric's nose didn't bleed again after the transfusion Tuesday, until Friday morning. Luckily he did have an appointment at the clinic scheduled for Friday. Upon arrival at the hospital, his Nurse Practitioner asked if he wanted an IV dose of Tranexamic Acid for the bleeding, but I declined since his nose had stopped bleeding. While he was getting accessed, it started again; unfortunately, since he was lying on his back, it also caused him to gag. We were so lucky to have 2 nurses in the room who managed to simultaneously slap the dressing on to protect his port access and get him sitting up (while his mother also gagged and was otherwise quite useless.) This is approximately when I learned that it was Friday the 13th, and it felt like it at the clinic. It seemed a bit chaotic, both in our room, and in the clinic in general. The platelets had been preordered, but with the continued bleeding, the team wanted to get the Tranexamic Acid in first. As it ended and just before the platelets started, Eric's bloodwork came back and his hemoglobin had dropped to 77 so he would need blood as well. Luckily, our nurse drew the blood for the group and screen (to confirm blood type) right then, so when the platelets finished, the blood was ready to go. This was lovely since last time Eric needed blood we had a one hour delay between the platelets ending and the blood starting. It was a long day, but after the nose bleed, everything went smoothly and as quickly as it could. Eric also had time to finish the project he'd been working on for Kristina's playroom, but I don't have a photo because when he finished, he just wanted it out of his room! It wasn't super well designed and a few parts were top heavy so they kept falling over.
I can't believe there is only 1.5 weeks left of school. I've spent some time talking to the team about summer and looking over our summer calendar and it's proving to be a little challenging. We had such a great summer of adventures last year and I'd love to be able to create amazing memories again this year. However, I have to remember we are not in the same place we were in last year. Eric's energy level, fatigue and nausea is up and down, and, critically, he really does need platelet transfusions every 5 days. It's making it difficult to plan for even a week away. So I will keep noodling on that, and in the meantime, Eric's next clinic visit is scheduled for Wednesday next week.
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