Saturday 19 July 2014

Clearing up

All day Friday the alarm kept going off here at the Alberta Children's Hospital.

"Ding! Ding! Code blue, oncology clinic Level 1."

When it first played over the intercom nurses and doctors literally dropped what they were doing and ran. Code blue means somebody's not breathing.

Five minutes later: "Ding! Ding! Code blue, oncology clinic Level 1."

And so on and so forth for the next six hours. Finally around dinner time, an announcement came that there was a malfunction with the automated code system on the clinic. Yeah, I think we'd all figured that out by then.

Just because the bell goes off doesn't mean somebody's in dire straights. On Friday, things weren't as bad as they once seemed.

I arrived to find Dominic had slept mostly through the night and thanks to drugs also peed himself thin again. His rash was almost nowhere to be found and his biggest problem was the skin peeling off from where the rash had been. Imagine what you'd look like a week after a full-body sunburn. Mr. Stay-Puft was gone and our boy was back.

He's started to sprout hair. Actual hair! He never even had hair before he was diagnosed with cancer. He's officially got me beat in that department.

There's still no diagnosis about the stupid rash, but it's clearly leaving him so whatever it was, we just have to hope it never returns.

He did get a diagnosis of a urinary tract infection, which is pretty minor and may or may not have anything to do with his other issues. They've stopped since a new set of antibiotics and steroids were prescribed, and if all goes well he could leave the hospital in a couple days.

Today we took him on a pass outside the hospital, but didn't stray far. The play area here is second-to-none, with an artificial turf soccer field and running track, mini-golf, massive playground with super-safe rubberized surface and more. For an hour he kicked balls, laughed on the swings, chased a bunny and got to be a kid. A kid who for the rest of the day was hooked up to medications and stuck in his room, because despite everything he's still on isolation.

Meanwhile my sister was riding her bike 175 kilometres on the second day of the Tour for Kids. Erin's raised more than $5,000 for Kids Cancer Care and Camp Kindle, a special place where kids and families affected by cancer come to play and heal. As you'd imagine cancer patients have a whole different set of needs if they're going to go to camp. This place will be perfect for Dom when he's a bit older.


It's been a long couple of weeks and you can never predict what tomorrow will bring, but things are looking up.

2 comments:

  1. YAY!!!! It's about time something went your way. Such great news. Made my day to hear this. I hope it's all smooth sailing now.

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  2. FANTASTIC news Dom. You are seriously amazing.
    Well done Erin. Just awesome!!!!

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