Day 21

The kids are back to school and now there are the sniffles and the coughs. I walk into the school and it’s the same sound everywhere.
I think to myself…how did we make it? How did I have a preschooler (totally germy), an elementary school child (at least they use hand sanitizer) and a child who had cancer?
Shane was only inpatient twice in his whole cancer journey for a fever because he caught something.
It’s a miracle in itself.
So, when you see those memes about not kissing babies….don’t kiss the babies. If your kids are sick…don’t send them to school. Honestly, just wash your hands.
When you come in from outside, before you eat, etc. I’m sure your mother told you this growing up.
The thing is….when your child has cancer all these things are so important.
They have no immune system. It’s completely wiped out by the chemo. You live by the count numbers…ANCs are the most important.
The end result is either a transfusion ( add an extra 4 hours on to your average trip for that) or hospitalization based on ANCs and fever.
This can also lead to delays in treatment. Pretty serious stuff when the chemo is the only thing killing these tumors.
So, if you know someone undergoing treatment..child or adult and they aren’t attending parties, go easy on them. Sometimes there are other bigger things going on behind the scenes that they don’t necessarily want to talk about.
We had lived our life based on Shane’s counts. Certain chemos made him EVEN MORE nutrapednic (low WBC). We made decisions on whether we attended events based on these. It wasn’t personal, it was what it had to be.
*This pic of Shane was a few hours before we rushed down to CHOP because his temp was over 101.4 (the standard in cancer patients for an ER visit). He had RSV. We remained quarantined for a week. We couldn’t leave his room. It was also the first week of December.
We missed my nephew’s 1st birthday and our family getting their first real tree.
#SFD #HelpShaneFightCancer #letsdobetter #ARMSaware