Cycle 3, Day -1: Sleepy, A Little Less Sad...

Today (Wednesday) was Steven's day "off", nothing going in his IV except fluids and antinausea medications.

One of the child life women brought him a boom box and he immediately wanted to listen to Elvis, which he played at full volume in the bathroom while he was taking his bath, to the amusement of the nurses.

This morning the nurse showed up right on schedule at 5:10 am remarking on the fact that he hadn't peed since midnight (to which I always want to say, "and your point is?"), getting him out of bed, standing him up, and trying to get him to go.

She tries for a while, leaves, comes back in 20 minutes, leaves, tries a third time (Steven is whimpering), this time she turns on a light directly above my face because she wants me to wake me up and get him to go.

I finally get up because I can see it's the only way we'll have any peace. He goes and I leave it there for the nurse and go back to sleep. She comes in, measures it, then slams the bathroom door into the head of the couch I'm trying to sleep on (it's still before 6 am and I didn't get to sleep until midnight). We can't wait to get out of here.

He's definitely got less energy this time around than last cycle, he was nauseous and asked for benadryl, which caused him to sleep for 4 hours or so during the day. He woke this time in time to visit with Dr. Mark when he came, but he missed his teacher again.

He's still pretty down, but not as many tears today as yesterday. He got some postcards from his classmates in San Diego today, this both cheered him and again made him long for home.

We're hoping that his spirits will improve when we get him out of the hospital. Since we've been in Memphis, we've spent 4 out of the last almost 11 weeks in the hospital between chemo and fever.

- Kathleen