Chemo Friday Treatment #5 – Entry #15
What a week! Olive came home Monday night after another 4 days in the hospital. She was welcomed by her excited sis, momma, daddy,and Mimi. The first couple days is a bit of a transition for everyone. Although we are all happy to be home, we are overtired and a bit anxious. Now as of Monday the 3rd, Quinn and Mimi are on antibiotics. Quinn has had a cold for over 10 days and Mimi has picked up whatever she had. This makes my bug patrol almost impossible.
The week rolls on. Olive is still camped down stairs at night with us to keep her from catching whatever her sis has. She gets back to her studies on Tuesday and Thursday with her super hero teacher Mrs. Cara Cuper. Olive continues to love her lessons at home and is over the moon when it involves her teacher who she loves to pieces! During her down time Olive is busy at work with all the wonderful arts and crafts that dear friends and family have sent. Her favorite this week was homemade purple sparkle play-dough.( Thanks cousin Kris in Boston). She has been working on her cut outs in preparation for her valentines week.
Thursday night we start to prepare Olive for her big day on Friday. Always letting her know ahead of time what to expect and remind her that we will see our awesome A team at the hospital. This Friday is a bit different than others. Olive has had a PICC line in her arm for almost a month. Since the doctors have confirmed no mass remaining in her chest she is cleared now to have her port placed!!!! The Port is inserted into one of her central veins and is left for the rest of Olive’s treatments.(2 1/2 yrs.) This will allow her to receive her chemo and blood draws easier. She also has a bone marrow aspiration, to confirm what we hope is cancer free, lumbar puncture for another round of intrathecal chemo and her PICC line removed. We tell Olive where she will be poked (5 different spots) while she is asleep and that she will not feel any pain just some aches for a few days after the procedure. She nods her head, I got it mom and dad. Her face is serious and later she tells me she doesn’t want to go to the hospital. I just explain that this is yet just another adventure on our journey to get you better. Game face, she nods her head accepting what is.
Friday morning starts off great! Olive is prepped and mentally ready to not eat until after the procedure. We have fun playing and doing a little “work” before we head out at 10:30. Arriving sharply at 11 hoping to get into surgery before 1pm. Olive quickly melts down after arriving unable to stand the hunger (can you blame her after being on whopping amounts of prednisone for the last month). I try every trick I brought, the “play ladies (child life specialists in the hospital)” didn’t even stand a chance this time. Time passed and I was finally dressed up in my “marshmellow suit” carrying my daughter, into what I pray is the 4th and last time, into surgery. I stay until she falls asleep and then went to the “waiting place”.
Time ticked on and about an hour and forty five min later I’m reunited with my girl. Fast asleep and completely at peace.
We hang until “hangry” olive awakes. Saltines aren’t going to cut it this time. I fast track the discharge process and get her home to eat one of her favorites…Mimi’s homemade meatballs. Happy and satisfied after a perfect comfort meal she complains of no pains, “just a little sore”. She is Olive the Brave.
Earlier when I was watching her sleep waiting for her to awake, I was just finishing a book (the namesake) I had been reading and came across this paragraph. “There are things in life for which it was impossible to prepare but which one spent a lifetime looking back at, trying to accept, interpret, comprehend. Things that should never have happened, that seemed out of place and wrong, these were what prevailed, what endured, in the end.”
Olive has the strength to endure, she is fearless and she will prevail.
