Day -2: Last Day of Chemo!

Last day of chemotherapy, and Sean is going from strength to strength!

We can hardly believe how well Sean has soldiered through the chemotherapy. I was fully prepared for him to be sick and clingy and miserable by now, but Sean continues to amaze us every day. Sean's strength and bravery and resilience knows no bounds, and even after 4 full days of chemo, he is still the happiest, cheekiest, funniest, full of life little boy that ever was.

We were definitely getting use to the shorn look, and every single person who saw him all agreed that Sean was cuter without the hair! Yesterday's hair cut was not 100% complete, so Jonathan took the clippers to Sean's head again today to even everything out. My little man's round little head was now all spiky and and shiny!

Grace came by for a visit today, and it was nice to spend some time with her and talk about what had been happening. Grace drove my parents to the airport earlier this morning and came by the hospital afterwards, and Sean was delighted to see her walk through the door. Grace sang songs to Sean, and played with him while we talked. I had tried my best to keep Grace up to speed with everything that had been going on, but it was still hard for her to picture how things were happening in Club 2W17 @ La SCHotel.

Grace stayed long enough to give us a hand when Jonathan tidied up Sean's hair with the clippers, and before long, she had to leave to get home to Vinay and the kids. I showed Grace around the ward, so she could see all the facilities we were so privileged to have on the ward, such as the full sized kitchen, toilet and shower facilities, laundry with a washing machine and a clothes dryer, and the parents lounge area. Grace was suitably impressed, and promised to return soon.

The last day of chemotherapy was like all the other days - the nurses came in to hook medications up to the machines, and gave Sean various oral medications, and monitored him closely to see if he suffered from any adverse effects. Being a Sunday, the medical team that walked through the door was considerably smaller than the team from earlier in the week. Adam, the Oncology Fellow was the lead for the day, and after checking Sean over, he was happy with Sean's progress, but delivered the news that it was time for Sean to get another NG tube. Boo. I so hate seeing that damn yellow tube being passed in through Sean's nose.

Sean's appetite was still so good, to the point where he asked for a snack today. I was cautious about feeding him too much food, but when he looked at me in such a pitiful manner and kept pointing at my snack of cheddar cheese, I gave him a small piece just to make him stop whining. One bite led to another, and another, and another. Sean ended up gobbling down a big piece of cheese all by himself. And if the piece of cheese had been any bigger, Sean would have eaten more!

All day long, our little baldy just got cuter and cuter. Jonathan and I noticed something about Sean today - when he smiled, he smiled with his eyes. And Sean gave us plenty of these smiles today. The nurses were all finding various excuses to come into the room to see and play with Sean, and everyone commented on how sociable and personable and fun Sean was.

Jonathan wandered up the road to get a few things from the shops around mid afternoon, and came back with bread rolls for dinner, a jar of marmalade and a jar of peanut butter, so we could have something other than Vegemite and jam on our toast. Today was the first day we didn't have fresh takeaway being delivered from Chatswood by my long suffering parents, so we had to fend for ourselves. I reheated some of the BBQ meats from yesterday, and the meats were just as tasty as they were yesterday when they were fresh off the grill. I had managed to get so much food yesterday that there was even some left for a future meal!

Late in the afternoon, Simone enlisted the help of another nurse called Tina to help with the NG tube insertion. Instead of sitting away from the action and crying, I decided to help today, holding the little syringe of water to drip into Sean's mouth to help him swallow, which in turn made it easier for the tube to go down his throat and into his stomach. Tina was super lightning quick - the tube was in and stuck down to Sean's face within 2 minutes. Sean didn't even have time to get completely overwrought!

Sean hit a major milestone today - he weighed in at 10.1kg! Granted, most of that was fluids, but we had never ever seen him crack the 10kg mark, and even if it was aided by a fat load of fluids, we'll take it for now. We can't wait to see him get to the 10kg mark all by himself!

We had no trouble getting Sean off to sleep tonight. He had a 2-hour nap from mid-morning to midday, and then refused to sleep for the rest of the afternoon. Sean was beyond exhausted by 7.30pm and after a quick bath, he fell asleep drinking his bottle. This allowed Jonathan to head home for an early night, which he desperately needed. With tomorrow being Monday, he will need to get out of bed by 6am and leave the house by 6.30am to get to the hospital before the doctors did their rounds. The night nurse Tracy restarted the overnight feed for Sean, meting out 5mL per hour through the NG tube.

Tomorrow is a "rest day" for Sean, meaning the chemotherapy is finished, and the transplant will take place on Tuesday. Day 0 is going to be here before we know it.