Joel's Second Round of Chemo

Joel and I checked back in the hospital on May 4th. He was so patient waiting for a room, I don't think we got one until 6:30 or so that night. I remember we walked around the hospital with Mimi. Ate Papa John's pizza in clinic. Got him an apple juice from Women's for a snack.

He fell asleep at the heart center during our long clinic day - May 4

May 6 - Visit with Bubba and Mimi

Ara-C rash

May 8

May 10 - we switched briefly and I went to clinic with Seth

May 11 - Joel and I went on a walk and found these door hanger craft kits in the kitchen.

He is so proud of himself - saying "ta-da!"

May 12

He was so constipated this day. He had to take lactalose every hour per Dr. Stevens. Then we walked the hallways. We came back in to the train tracks and he stood here and finally went. That night he had a horrible blow-out. I walked out of the bathroom getting ready for bed and liquid poop was all over his shirt. Tyler helped us clean up and Angel changed his caps.

We read a lot of books during our 3 weeks plus together in the hospital
May 14th

May 14 - Mother's Day

May 15 - N and S fun at home with Dad

Fell asleep while we did some laps around the hall - May 15

He did well at putting together 16-pc puzzles

Sick with a fever - May 17th
I was worried that he would be sick like his last round of chemo, but it was only a day or two. Kelli sent me dinner that night from Hungry's and included a big piece of chocolate cake. Joel noticed it when I pulled it out of the brown bag. Even with a fever, he wanted to eat some cake. I don't think he had eaten anything else all day!

May 20

We watched "Frozen" and made a little snowman out of modeling clay - May 21

I love it that he still has his sense of humor in the hospital - May 22

The nurses were eating special cupcakes and of course Joel was able to get them to give him a cupcake

He loved the chocolate sprinkles

May 23 - night of heart problems

I can't even tell you how stressful this was. We got a new pole around 4:00 that afternoon. Emily was our nurse. She listened to Joel and I guess noticed something different in his baseline heart beat. Later she called Kelsey, the Dr. to listen. Cardiology was called. I noticed Joel was having a lot of wet diapers. At bedtime he was screaming and arching his back and really uncomfortable. The cardiologist came very late - like 10:00. The night Drs. had come in and said it sounded like he was having an extra heart beat. The cardiologist wanted his fluids cut down. We realized at this time that when we got the new pump, there was a crack in the pump and the saline was going through Joel at a much faster rate than prescribed, making his heart problems worse. A nice night nurse from Kansas helped figure it out. I think I was awake all night long that night. It was terrible.

May 26

Joel loved riding around on the Thomas push thing - I would push him, then make him pedal a bit . . .

May 31 - Dad and Joel listening to Basist from Houston Symphony

June 3

June 4

Joel was really on a pbj kick at the end of this round of chemo. I think this is when Will ordered 2 pbjs and Joel ate every bit of both of them. I also remember reading Joel a book called "Bats and Birds" that we checked out from the library at the hospital. At the end there were questions about bats and birds and Joel got every one of them right. We also read "Are you my Mother" quite a bit. But Joel was scared of the "Snort" machine at the end of the book.