Cycle 4, Day +1: A Good Friday

Good Friday this year was... well, it was good. Wonderful, in fact.

Maybe that's the wrong spirit for such a solemn occasion, but I feel like we've been given a wondrous Easter gift.

Steven stayed up far too late on Thursday night, got up on Friday with not enough sleep, and started charging around like he'd been supercharged.

Sean was out of school on Friday, so he accompanied us to the hospital for Steven's appointments-- drawing blood, school, and his daily infusion of GCSF.

Steven and Sean were chasing each other through the halls and wrestling with each other at every opportunity, to my distress. Steven's blood counts are falling, white cells, red cells, platelets-- it wouldn't be a good situation if he fell and bruised himself.

A singing group came to the hospital and sang Easter music. We were done at 1:00 pm, it was warm and sunny, so I took the kids to Harbor Town, which has a wide greenbelt along the Mississippi River and a nice place for them to play.

Steven and Sean climbed down on the rocks and came back with two broken 2 by 4's, which they wanted to use as hockey sticks. Steven dragged a beer can out of the river and wanted to use it as a puck. I'm trying to count how many germs are growing in the river, on the beer can, and on the wood they pulled up from the river bank, and squirting Steven's hands with hand sanitizer, wondering what his doctor would say if he could see us.

I nixed the beer can, found some dry wood for them, and they used a football as a puck. A woman we know walked her dog down to where the kids were playing, the dog had been in the river, and Steven was embracing the dog. At St. Jude they don't let the kids be around dogs while they have low blood counts.

Anyway it was a wonderful day filled with bacteria, fungi, and other germs. To cap off our time at the river, Steven had disappeared when it was time to get in the car and I found him in a sewer pipe.

After the river, we came home, I tried to sterilize Steven, vowing to stay away from the river until he has an immune system again, and we went to Good Friday services. We stopped by a friend's house afterward where Steven, Sean, and three other boys played tag in the back yard, and didn't get home until almost 10 pm, at which time we ate dinner. Steven got into bed at midnight.

So, we're praying he continues to feel well, and that he doesn't come down with some dread disease as a result of his wonderful day. I'm trying to decide what the doctor will say about the sewer episode.

- Kathleen