Thursday May 24th, Community...and A Little Chaos!

This morning was not great.  Ingram cried for some reason the better part of being in the back and I finally looked at the doctors and nurses and asked "Are y'all ready yet?"  They smiled and then 15 seconds later Ingram was asleep in my arms.  I booked it to the cafeteria only to find they were out of pancakes AND rice krispie treats and I thought I wanted to go back to bed and restart our day.  The gals were setting out the lunch stuff and I asked if they had any leftover pancakes and she said no; then two seconds later she asked if it was for a patient and I explained about Ingram being sedated in radiation and that he loves waking up to a pancake, even if it's cold.  She told me to hold on and 5 minutes later gave me two fresh hot pancakes on a plate.  Next thing I know, they're handing me two rice krispie treats as well.  The great thing is that I see this kind of stuff every day to kids of all ages and stages of treatment.  The staff in every part of the hopsital goes out of their way to make sure that each and every child is taken care of in every regard. 

So the rest of the story from this morning is crazy!  First off, when we got to the hospital, I realized we didn't have Lamby...bad news.  We've had Lamby since Ingram was born and yesterday she went out with the dirty blankets from our wagon at the hospital.  Once we realized it, our registration gal made about 4 phone calls and now there is an APB out for Lamby with a picture included.  We're not exactly sure if she'll come back to us, but we sure are hoping for the best!  Then when Ingram was waking up from sedation, he decided today that he didn't like apple juice any more and he didn't want to eat the special order pancakes.  Next I was giving him some fruit punch and the top of the cup came off and I soaked him with red fruit punch.  By this time, he was crying just as loud as he was earlier and I just put him in the wagon and rolled away with him.  This was definitely a day when I could've cried instead of laughing at the situation, because Ingram was a wet, sticky, half-naked boy and it was all my fault. 

Thankfully our day ended on a great note!!  All five of us went down to the Ronald McDonald House and played for hours with our new friends.  My girls told us on the way home that they wanted to go back because they had so much fun; they didn't expect it to be fun since the kids were "sick" like Ingram.  These boys aren't going to let a little cancer slow them down at all.  They were chasing Madison and Lindsey all around the inside and outisde of the house.  They were hitting, kicking, jumping, falling, racing on bikes, shooting with some sort of flying ball gun, putting each other in jail, and and even fitting inside of a toy fridge!  It was great and it let all of us talk and tell each other our stories too.  Two of the families are finished with treatment and leaving tomorrow so it just leaves us two "newbys" left, us and an out of town family, to welcome the new faces that come into the Radiation Clinic.  It's exciting to have friends finish and get to go home, but at the same time, part of our family is leaving and it's sad.  We've only known them for about a month now, but when we are all in the situation we're in, you quickly get beyond the "fluff" that comes with meeting new people and go straight to the heart. 

Watch Out World, Here We Come!