A Different Kind of Snow Day

We always take a day at a time, it really is the only way to get through this ordeal.  We were blessed with over a week of energy, happiness and even three days in school!  We consider those days the start of what might become.   Day One of Cycle Five put an end to those days, at least for the time being.  Blizzard alert meant that Sam went to the clinic on Wednesday afternoon, after his Hundred Day celebration.  He had to be accessed and had his doses of all the usual toxic goodies that are keeping the cancer at bay.  The accumulation of these medicines seem to be causing some very unfortunate side effects.

Jack had recently moved back into his own bed. Sam had, after all, been doing so well.   We tucked the boys in bed and I sang the songs which have recently become a ritual again (how I missed that as they refused to let me sing to them for over a year).  "Two Little Boys" and "Lullaby" later, Brian and I settled down to our evening chores followed by some TV to relax.  Then Sammy came down.

Looking like a ghost with red rings around his eyes, wobbly and shaking like a leaf, we lay him down on the couch and promptly took is temperature...no fever...phew!  Then the vomiting began.  My poor child  was so sick he ended up dry-heaving through the night.  Jack was moved back to our bed, I 'slept' in Jacks bed next to Sam and literally stayed awake the whole time to prevent Sam from choking on the bile that kept flooding his mouth.  My heart was breaking each time he uttered the words, "When is this going to stop?"  We also had diarrhea and I must have changed bedsheets and PJ's several times.  The next morning, Poppa came up early so we could get to work...no more sick days for us....and we begrudgingly left our son to try to focus on teaching for the day.  Poppa reported that Sam slept all day and ate absolutely nothing!

The evening was miserable and the night  a blur, but the vomiting had stopped, only visits to the bathroom for the yucky stuff.  But, a white blanket impeded our ability to drive..Yippeee...SNOW DAY!  We knew this one was not going to be like the first: we were not going to have some fun family times together.  Instead we were blessed with a day to look after our lovely Sammy.  Jack and I did fit in some Chess time together, and he even got to play outside with a local friend.  But most importantly, Sammy had his family with him as he got through the day with such pain, he felt "old".  He could not move, but he had Mummy sitting next to him, he could not play, but he had Daddy keeping him company.  The snow day was another gift after all.