Crap

Maybe our journey's been too easy. Maybe we've been too blessed, and now it's time for karmic payback.

Or maybe this low point on the roller coaster is just exacerbated by the lack of sunlight.

When Dominic stopped eating regularly during his fourth round of chemotherapy we thought it was unusual, but also expected. Nausea is a common side effect to the harsh drugs he's been taking, so the fact it began earlier than usual wasn't the end of the world.

He got the infamous NG tube, pulled it out the next morning, then had it reinserted with extra tape to keep it in place. He ate a little bit here, a little more there, giving hope that this too, would pass.

Nope. That was four days ago.

Yesterday he started puking, upchucking the entire tube as part of the show. They put it back in of course.

Then it was diarrhea. I'll spare you the details, but let's just say it was a messy day in room 1110 for both mother and child. Wait, that might sound wrong. Only messy for mom because she had to change about two dozen diapers and untold amounts of clothes.

Finally, a fever. Boom, he's on isolation. The little boy who had just learned to walk up and down every hallway on his own is now confined to a space of a hundred square feet.

Granted, this was going to be the case once he had his bone marrow transplant next month. That's going ahead as planned, with both 10 out of 10 matches having agreed to the process. Our tentative date is Feb. 17, but there are a dozen different tests to be done before then.

There were parts of the day that were better. Like when a fellow cancer patient from Medicine Hat got his broviac line out. His family came to see Trish and Dominic. Their prognosis is fantastic, but also guarded because for the next five-plus years there's always a chance the cancer could relapse — that there was more disease lurking that the treatment didn't kill. We all say we think positively and don't entertain such thoughts, but it's always an underlying fear.

The plan is for another return home once Dom's counts rise again, which isn't expected for at least another week.

Hopefully he's not still feeling crappy by then. Pun intended.