Round #2

Back at it

Because on Friday Noah's blood counts had continued to improve, the oncologist at McMaster has given the "go ahead" to begin Noah's second round of chemotherapy today. This morning, he left bright and early and headed, once again, to the hospital where he will have his blood levels checked one more time. After they make sure things are where they need to be, Noah will begin the first treatment of his next five days of this cycle of chemo.

The good news this time around, is that Noah does not need to be checked into the oncology ward to receive his treatments. On Friday, his team decided that Noah will be an outpatient for as long as he is doing well enough to remain an outpatient. He will go into the hospital for his injections - both of which take about fifteen minutes to go into his body and are given forty-five minutes apart - and then he will come back home! This news was unexpected but very happily received.

And why is Noah allowed to come back home?

The shorter answer is, "Because he is awesome." The longer answer is that, because he is doing so well at home, the team figures he will be better off, health-wise, if he is able to spend more time there.

This is what I mean by doing well. Throughout the week, Noah has been moving more and more. He isn't quite back to being the rough and tumble toddler he was a couple of months ago, but he is running around, jumping, getting up and down stairs and climbing things (like pianos) that give us mild panic attacks.

He has also taking less and less medication for pain. Though we are constantly assured that it is okay to give Noah morphine as needed, he has needed less and less of his morphine as the week progressed. Pain is always a tricky one to gauge with Noah, as he usually does not let pain get in the way of fun, nor does it slow him if there is something he really wants to do or have. By and large, though, he has been less bothered by the discomfort that both his cancer and his treatments cause.

Throughout the past week Noah's appetite has also returned. At home, he gets to eat the food he likes and, because his nausea is mostly gone, he is once again eating well. This has also meant that he has not needed supplementary feeds or drinks though his feeding tube for the last three or four days, something we are also very thankful for. The tube remains for medication but he has not been hooked up to the feeding pump for a few nights now.

One of the biggest reasons, however, that Noah is encouraged to stay home between treatments is that he rests much better in his own bed. Noah has been sleeping like a little log in his cozy bedroom and he is routinely getting between 11 and 12 hours of uninterrupted "z's" a night, something his little body certainly benefits from. There are no interruptions from nurses or noisy wards at home and, for now, this is the best place for him to find rest.

Focus

And now, of course, because he is doing well, his cancer also begins to come back and so it is time to let the chemo get back to work. It is time to take Noah's cancer to task and, consequently, Noah will once again lose bone marrow, blood cells, appetite, energy...

It is tough to think about.

While thinking about these things one evening as I took a walk on a cold clear evening, a thought came to me that I am certain comes to everyone in times of chaos and crisis. The thought was this: pain and uncertainty put everything into focus. Like adjusting the lens of a camera, Noah's cancer and treatment have made clear and brought to the front the true subject of living and have minimized the unnecessary attention spent on the less important background noise.

And what has been made so clear over the past week is that ordinary life is a true gift from God.

It has been a gift to watch Noah play with his sisters on the floor of the living room, telling them what to do and then running and squealing as they chase and scare him; to spend time together as a family over a long, lingering dinner where silliness and energy need to be re-directed towards eating; to take walks through local trails and to let Noah wander and clamor around the old steam engine that sits, rusted into place and which still gets little guys so excited they decide to roll around on the frozen ground; to have Noah scream, "no night!" when it is time for bed just because he doesn't want the day to end or to leave the gang because it is just so good to be all together once again.

All these things are such beautiful gifts, just as Noah's life is also such a beautiful gift. How can he have cancer?

And so we move forward with this next round of chemotherapy clinging to the grace and beauty of those wonderful, ordinary moments, and clinging to hopes of future moments of of grace filled ordinary.

All this knowing, as I was reminded this week through the sharing of Dame Julian's quote, that in spite of everything ahead, "...all will be well, all will be well, and all manner of things will be well."