{-7}

Today was day negative 7.....that means 7 days until transplant..
Today began Parklen's new journey, his journey towards health.
Today was the first day of Chemo.....

If I could explain the nerves I experienced in the days leading up,
If I could really make you understand what has been going through my mind....
If there were a way to show you EXACTLY what I felt in anticipation of today,
I am sure that you too would feel nauseous, sick, and afraid.

All of the hype....
lead to a pretty uneventful day.
He received his first dose of Chemo as planned.....
he will get his second this evening.....

He began with a drug that is excreted through your skin....
Because of its toxicity he cannot have any tape on his skin....he had to get rid of the feeding tube for a few days, and he cannot have tape over his central line.....So he is trying to drink extra shakes for nutrition and using a netting around his chest to hold a sterile gauze over his site.....we call that his tube top. :)

Because of the excretion, he is required to take a bath every six hours on the dot....around the clock.
Do you know Parklen?
Do you know that he hates to bathe??
So, we assumed that this would be no easy task....
The first bath today went with out a hitch....and even a couple of smiles....
of course, having Batman present for the scrubbing doesn't hurt a bit.
Lets hope that the Dark Knight can make the late night and early morning baths just as great.....
I mean what could be hard about waking a five year old up at 10 pm and 4 in the morning....
forcing that sleepy child into a tub and scrubbing down their already sore skin.....sounds fun eh?
After every bath, the nurse must clean his line and re-dress the site....it must remain sterile

Another fun fact about Chemotherapy and bone marrow transplant is mouth care.....
Mouth sores are very common in kids going through this process and so they do all that they can to try and prevent them.
Parklen has mouth care three times a day....this consists of brushing, using an anti fungal, a mouth wash and chap stick......the entire mouth care routine takes a little over 40 minutes.....
Did you know Parklen hates brushing his teeth????
His mouth has always been sore and brushing has always been a fight.....a necessary but awful fight...
Parklen did wonderful with his mouth care today.

Tomorrow Parklen will start two more chemo drugs......with different side effects.
Tomorrow will worry about itself....
I am choosing to smile this evening....
Smile because there is not a doubt in my mind that God is at work....
Smile because the many prayers being said for Parklen have been shown....
Smile because that's exactly what Parky did up until the moment he just fell asleep......
Smile because the fear of the future is too heavy.....
it feels better to smile than to cry.....
Smile, Smile, Smile.
Think you have troubles???
I know that I often do,
but when I think of Parklen.....the things he has gone through, even just today.....
when I think about his little grin,
its hard to concentrate on anything but blessings.