Day 19 – April 6, 2022

8:15 pm: I just introduced Harvey to his web site. We have been sharing every comment, email, phone call, text message, and card that has been sent wishing him well. Thank you all so much! I want to share with you how much he loves it. ❤️

7:45 pm: Harvey napped for most the afternoon. He’s so worn out. He woke up a little after 5 pm, we went for a walk, and he ate buttered noodles and, you guessed it, a hotdog for supper. When awake, he’s been his comical self again. Some memorable Harvey quotes from today:

“That song is so old dust is going to come out of my mouth if I sing it!”

*While pausing his supper to use the bathroom* “Cover up my food! I’m pooping. I don’t want my food to stink!”

“You know something? I like potato chips a lot!”

Oh, Harvey! During our walk this evening, we stopped by the patient fridge to pick out a drink for supper. While he was browsing inventory, I was admiring his old-man hair. He’s balding where his head meets his pillow.

Today marks our 19th day in the hospital. Thankfully, we’re still finding ways to keep Harvey and ourselves entertained. For example, this just occurred as I was typing this update:

No big updates from Harvey’s health care team today. We’re going to begin transitioning him to oral medications so that we’re able to administer them from home eventually. Harvey’s glucose levels, ANC (counts), blood pressure, and heart rate need to stabilize a bit more before he can be discharged. His next round of chemotherapy on Friday will be his first without also taking steroids, so we’ll get a chance to see how his body responds to just the chemotherapy. I’m hopeful that we are down to the remaining days and not weeks in the hospital at this point. Realistically, we could end up back here at any moment again after we’re discharged. Any sign of illness with Harvey will be a trip to the emergency room. This will be his life for the foreseeable future.

For now, we can only anticipate being back together as a family under one roof. Our twins need us back home. This has been immensely hard on them. Being back at the house with them last night was wonderful, but also difficult. We’re all shook from the empty silence that emanates from the room with the big blue car bed. Harvey’s room.

12:00 pm: Our day is well underway with Harvey receiving another transfusion of red blood cells. He woke up with a slightly low glucose level of 58. He wasn’t able to keep much food down yesterday, but today has been much better so far (fingers crossed). He had another restful night and is wide awake and watching “Paw Patrol: The Movie” in bed. We are two thirds of the way through his induction chemotherapy (the first phase of cancer treatment). His next dose will be administered on Friday morning.

I arrived back at the hospital this morning after spending the night and morning at home. The once dreaded morning routine of getting kids fed, dressed, and delivered to school seems therapeutic now. I know it’s a lot of work, and we’re so thankful to have had caregivers for the twins for almost 3 weeks now. It should be a quiet day here at the hospital and it’s now time to convince Harvey to get out of bed and go for a walk. Wish me luck!