Getting back to normal?

After a rough couple of post chemotherapy days, Aidan bounced back on Sunday and since then has been the same 9 year old that we all love.  If he had a long sleeve shirt on that covered his picc line you'd probably never even guess he was sick at all.

That wasn't the case last Friday or Saturday.  The chemotherapy kicked his butt pretty good.  His throat was sore and it hurt to swallow even water. He had little appetite and even when he was hungry, eating was a bit of an adventure because one of his medicines was making his jaw and teeth hurt pretty badly. Giving him Tylenol helped a little bit, but he was still generally pretty miserable and run down.  He handled it like a trooper though and we did anything and everything to make him as comfortable as we could.

On Sunday afternoon he found himself again and had a fun day at Grandma's house playing board games and watching TV. He felt so good he even spent the night. His brother joined him in the afternoon on Monday giving Jamie a much needed break.

When I picked the boys up Monday evening, things truly had returned to normal, they fought like cats and dogs pretty much the entire way home.  When I asked Aidan as nicely as I could to "Please stop instigating and tormenting your little brother" his response was "But it's fun!"  Yep, back to normal.  Except, not quite, really.

Two weeks ago I wouldn't have been able to listen to more than  minute of the back seat arguing before raising my voice.  Monday it was comforting to hear the 4 year old whining and demanding Aidan stop saying whatever annoying thing he kept repeating. (Just because I took some comfort in it doesn't mean I didn't try my best to completely ignore it.)  They almost made it halfway home (about 15 minutes) before I demanded they knock it off and be nicer to each other.

Aidan even felt well enough to get out of the house and go to a movie yesterday.  His blood counts were exceptional so it wasn't a huge risk to have him out especially for a matinee when most kids are in school.  Even though Jamie and I would prefer to  never let him leave the house for the next 9 months, it's important to allow him to do stuff like this when he's able..

For what it's worth, I seem to be finding my way back to normal as well. These last few weeks have been really hard.I know that I'll be forever changed by them and the journey we have ahead of us, but there have been a couple of moments when things are quiet, (like trying to go to sleep or waking up in the middle of the night) where I wondered, for example, if I'd ever get my sense of humor back. I wondered if I'd ever be able to talk about this diagnosis and treatment without finding myself on the verge of a breakdown.

I'm definitely getting there.  I had those conversations today and stayed composed  I laughed really hard about the silliest things today, and I said amazingly witty silly things that I hope have made other people smile or chuckle. It's still a work in progress, but I'm headed in the right direction.

Aidan goes for more chemotherapy today.  It's just an outpatient visit and he just gets one dose of a single medication.  I hope that it doesn't hit him too hard and we can continue to ride this happy wave we are currently on, but we'll deal with whatever happens as best we can.