Week of July 19...

...and Eric's birthday!!! On Sunday, Eric turned 11 years old. He was so excited for his birthday, as he is every year. 

We rented a private backyard pool on Swimply for Eric to celebrate with his friends. It was in South Surrey because Eric saw on the thumbnail that it had both a diving board AND a slide! Since it was a bit of a drive, the kids met at our house and we drove them out there. We had a boys car and a girls car. The kids had a blast playing in the pool with all the floaties, plus going on the slide and diving board. They had pizza and cake and before we knew it, it was time to head back home. 

Eric was EXHAUSTED when we arrived home, but he only had a couple hours to rest before getting back in the car to meet Granny, Uncle Dave, Auntie Jenny and Uncle Jay for birthday dinner at Boston Pizza. That was Eric's choice since they have his favourite - bugs and cheese. On the way there, we drove past Royal Columbian at 5:19pm and I said that is where you were born 11 years and 5 minutes ago. We had a nice catch up with the family and Eric was spoiled with (more) LEGO. 

Back at home he opened more LEGO gifts from family who couldn't be there and we packed up for camp. It was a very busy and very fun day! 

Monday we went to clinic for TWO units of platelets. They wanted to load him up before Camp Goodtimes. Unfortunately it doesn't really give him any more longevity but hopefully will help with the bumps, bruises and bleeding that might happen at camp. In clinic lots of people wished Eric a happy birthday and Kristina, the Child Life Specialist, let him pick a LEGO set for his birthday. The Fellow did say Eric's lungs are a bit more wheezy than they were last week, but Eric isn't having difficulty breathing so we are continuing to wean the steroids. They plowed the platelets into him pretty fast. I knew they were supposed to do platelets over an hour, but hadn't realized that it doesn't matter how many bags you put in during that hour. Luckily, it gave us a bit of time at home to finish prepping for camp before we had to head out to Loon Lake for drop off.

At home, I was getting Eric's meds ready when I realized that I was so focused on camp, I had forgotten to pick up his oral chemo at the BC Children's Hospital pharmacy when we were there. I had counted his meds the previous week to see what needed refilling before camp and that was the only one that would run out before the end of the camp. I made sure to get it refilled for Monday so it would be ready for camp. So here I am, so excited about 4 full days of freedom, now thinking that I am going to have to sacrifice one of them to drive from Coquitlam to the hospital pharmacy in Vancouver and then to camp in Maple Ridge before finally heading back home. I reached out to our Nurse Clinician and she was able to pick the meds up from pharmacy for me and give them to the Camp Medical Director, who is another Oncologist on T8. She just pops in and out of camp, but was at the hospital on Monday and heading out to camp to check in that evening so she was able to bring the meds out with her. I was so grateful they were able to do this for me and feeling so, so lucky!  

Both kids were gone until Saturday early afternoon when we had planned for Chuck and I to drive separate cars to camp. He would pick up Joel and drive him home and I would take Eric to the hospital for a scheduled platelet transfusion. However, I did get a call from camp at 10:50 while I was sitting on the couch, drinking my tea and enjoying the last little bit of freedom. They wanted to give me a heads up that Eric wasn't feeling great and his temp was elevated at 37.8 degrees. It's not a true fever until 38 degrees, but it seemed like it was headed in that direction. We were going to the hospital for a platelet transfusion after pick up anyhow so no need to change plans, but I did use my remaining free time to pack an overnight bag. 

At pick up I saw Joel for long enough to give him a hug and learn that he had a great time before going to pick up Eric from the med shed. The nurse at med shed said that his temp had actually dropped from when they called me, so no fever. Eric was clearly very tired and was pretty quiet on the way to the hospital, but he did say "worth it" which is the same thing he said last year when he came home from camp with a cold.

At the hospital he was accessed easily on T8 - thank heaven we had that appointment scheduled and didn't have to go to the ER. They did bloodwork and started the platelets right away. When the bloodwork came back, his WBC count had continued to drop from Monday, which is a good thing and his blast count was still fairly low, but his hemoglobin was 70! Eric generally gets symptomatic at 80 and he had been having headaches at camp, but they told me he'd spent the whole previous day swimming and dancing. Eric confirmed he'd been swimming FOUR TIMES in one day and then danced at the dance party that evening. If I had a hemoglobin under 100, I probably wouldn't get out of bed, let alone if it was 70. So the doctor ordered a red blood cell transfusion for Eric as well. It made for a longer day than we had planned but we were comfortable on the inpatient side, since clinic is closed on the weekends. The doctor said that obviously Eric had a cold - he was hoarse, coughing and stuffy - but his temp was mid 36s at the hospital so she said she didn't see any reason we needed to stay. Though she did warn us that we could be back anytime if the cold causes him to spike a fever. 

I was saying to our nurse about how slow they run blood on the inpatient side versus the clinic and she actually got permission to run it at the same rate as in clinic so we could go home more quickly. However, when she did Eric's last set of vitals at the end of the transfusion, his temp was 37.7 degrees. We decided to wait 20 minutes and check temp again. If he was going to spike a fever we didn't want to de-access his port and leave, only to have to come back into the ER for a re-access. When the nurse came back in 30 minutes it was 37.6, which didn't help us to make a decision, so we waited another 20 minutes. At that time it was 37.3 which was still elevated, but they take the temp by running across the forehead and then behind one ear, so she did the other ear and it was 36.9. That was low enough for me so I said, we're out of here. Eric was really afraid we'd just have to turn around and come back so he wasn't sold on leaving. I told him that of course I would do whatever he chose but that I thought we should discuss it before making a decision. His temp rose mid morning but never hit a fever and 10 hours later, same thing, and he wasn't feeling feverish either time. Additionally, I felt with the fresh blood on board and being able to get a good night of sleep at home, he'd probably feel better. I figured there was a good chance we could get by without a fever and I didn't want to wait in the hospital to find out. He obviously didn't want to stay at the hospital either, so I was able to convince him fairly easily. We made it home a little after 9pm and Eric was happy to be in his bed at home. It's now Sunday late morning and no fever 🤞

Here are a couple of pictures from Camp Goodtimes Instagram during the week. Eric was playing D&D during board games time and Joel playing Black Jack during the Carnival. Apparently he bet it all and won! Mid week when I couldn't see or talk to them, I loved seeing how happy they were!