Extra padding

One of the nursing assistants heard my back has been flaring up so she brought me an inflatable mattress topper! It seemed a little bit much at first (doesn't it look crazy?!) but we've been lounging on it for the last 30 minutes and it feels pretty good, so we'll see how it stacks up tonight. :)

In today's episode of "Our Rambunctious Monkey"

As our stay gets longer, the walls of our room tend to start moving in, and Callum is getting antsier.

Last night, he discovered the foot pedals on his bed would raise and lower it, creating the perfect jungle gym for our energetic guy. ;-)

Callum's ANC continues to go up and down (but mostly stays down - today he was back down to 30). :( All of his other numbers look really good though - so the doctors remain optimistic and keep cheering us on with an "any day now!" attitude.

Day 10

I dream of eating delicious food once again, and hitting the gym, the minute we're outta here. 😜

Our little gymnast

He does this sort of stuff constantly. All day long. Without even thinking about it. He's a bundle of energy (I guess who wouldn't be, since we've been trapped in a small room for so long) and thankfully, remains in great spirits, despite the situation. The doctors love seeing him because he continues to show such positive energy. :)

After a low of 23 yesterday, his ANC finally moved up a bit today (but still very low, he clocked in at 38). I'm proud to say I've been watching the numbers close enough, that I predicted to the doctors yesterday, that I thought we might finally be turning a corner. :)

Now, we just have to keep hoping for the numbers to increase (doubling or tripling is fine by me!) so we can get the hell outta here! ;-)

Heat and Ice

One good thing about being in a hospital when your hips and back flare up, is that the super nice nurses will hook you up with heat and ice packs for the night.

Of course, my hips and back wouldn't be flaring up if I weren't sleeping on lopsided uncomfortable hospital pullout beds, to begin with. ;-) But we'll just ignore that little fact for a bit and thank the kind nurses for coming to my aid!

Hakone Gardens

I had really wanted to take the boys to Hakone Gardens on Sunday since there was a special Chinese New Years celebration happening. Of course Callum and I couldn't make it but I told Jon that he and Paul (who flew in last Monday evening to help us this past week while we've been in the hospital - thank goodness!) should take Logan, since he might like to see where Mommy and Daddy got married. :)

So they did! Unfortunately they missed most of the celebratory stuff, but it sounds like they still had a fun time walking the gardens and showing Logan around. :)

Side note: I can't get over how big Logan is looking these days... Jeez!

Still here...

I took this first pic of us on Saturday morning when we were lounging and hoping to go home. The Attending had told me on Friday that as long as Callum's cultures came back negative, we'd be all set to go home. However, Saturday morning that story changed. Callum's counts had dropped and while the cultures were negative (yay!), the Attending changed his mind and wanted to keep us another night.

So, I really let him have it.

I understand when there's a "change in the guard" from one Attending to another (which happened to us between Thursday and Friday), since each doctor will be more or less conservative than another. But to have the SAME doctor switch on me overnight really pissed me off, to be quite honest.

And, he got that message loud and clear. :/

I know a lot of my blow up has to do with the fact that we've been trapped in a room for 6 days too long. And I'm exhausted and stressed and, as I've blogged already, we've certainly been put through the ringer this week, which has made me abnormally on edge and cranky (even poor Jon hears it when we touch base on the phone each day).

But I really don't like being told one thing and then having someone change his mind the next. And, while Callum's counts *are* low, we've been home with lower. And everyone goes on and on about how great he looks and how wonderful his toes look and my how much energy he has does he always jump and okay and run around like this? (Yes pretty much) and on and on and on. But I don't think they really understand the impact to our entire family, by keeping us here. And while I totally get that he *could* have a break and hit a fever when we get home and require us to turn right around and come back, I'm curious how often cases like ours result in that scenario vs. nothing happening and the child recovers quite nicely at home. :)

So, here we are. Sitting and waiting. Watching lots of movies and playing games. With both of us crawling out of our skin, since Callum is still on isolation due to his cold. :(

I did finally lighten up a bit after the weekend. So yesterday I joked with the Attending that I wouldn't mind if he wanted to start Callum on steroids (since steroids will beef up his numbers). Everyone had a good laugh at that and he told me I've been here too long, if I'm saying that. ;-)

So very true!

Despite my grumpiness, Callum remains in great spirits (he's getting food on demand, gets to play on his iPad freely, and gets to be with Mama 24/7 so who can blame him!).

Yesterday was a week since we were admitted and his port was accessed, which means he was due for a needle change (they have to change the needle in his port every 7 days). It's never a fun process but he did okay. While he was de-accessed and in between his antibiotic doses I had him take a bath, which he loved. He was standing on the tiled bench at the back of the bathtub asking me if I had brought his goggles.

Why?

Because he wanted to jump in.

:)