Round 2, day 12

Round 2 day #12 - The Chemo Side Effects roared their ugly head today  and took over Jackson’s body.  It started yesterday with Jackson being very fatigued and a little grumpy. In the evening his neck and knee pain had returned.

This morning he spiked a high fever which required labs drawn from both his arm and his central line and immediately started antibiotics. His pain was bad enough we had to get him some morphine. He required a blood transfusion today and will get platelets in a day or so.
 He is lying in bed resting peacefully with the help of the ativan, as his body fights hard to rebuild everything that the chemo has killed off again.

This is the hardest part intentionally making your child sick because this is the best option for survival! I learned recently that all of the money used for cancer research only 4% of it is used for Childhood Cancer research. That sounds crazy to me. Why? Why is adult cancers more important than child hood cancer. ( not that Adult Cancer isn’t important) Why isn’t there a cure for this yet?!  I’m sure someone has a logical explanation as to why. It’s just not fair to these poor kids who all need to live their lives. I know... I know... life isn’t fair.

Anyway.... we are continuing to pray that he rebounds quickly this round. As for me... everyone keeps asking. How are you doing? How are you holding up? And the answer is. I really don’t know. I just keep doing what I need to do each day. Some days I do it better than others. I tend to do better when Matt isn’t here. When he hugs me tightly I feel every muscle in my body literally melt into him as tears start streaming down my face. It doesn’t matter when or where he hugs me it just happens and I can’t help it.
I do know that I couldn’t do this without the wonderful people in my life that are taking care of other areas of my life, my children, my job, my mother, etc.

Being here and watching Jackson go through this treatment is so hard. Being away from my other two kids is so hard, and feeling like I have no control and being so far away that I am helpless is hard. It’s all hard. I hate it but then again it all comes back to I am not in control anymore.

I’m sure I am suppose to be learning something right now... but I am not. I just know this sucks and can’t wait for it all to be over.

I try to remind myself daily how blessed we are. How things could be worse. How others are suffering in worse ways than we are. Things will get better. But I won’t lie when I say sometimes the stress, anxiety, worry, and fear trump those things.

So for now we are back to day by day to get through this round! Looking forward to being able to break out of here again.

#CancerSucks #JacksonStrong #Mytinysuperhero #SuperHeroStrong