Ingram the Conqueror: Wednesday August 22nd, A Great Day...Interrupted!

Oh how fun it is to have energy even though Ingram's appetite decided to go AWOL again! Ingram woke up happy and played while the girls were getting ready for school and then we went out back to look at the pool that was filled to the rim with water. We were making plans of what all we were going to do and who we were going to make "walk the plank" first. We decided we didn't need a diving board so we got a pirate ship plank instead.

Mr. Jay (the builder of the most fun pool ever) told us that we could swim this afternoon; well at least the girls could swim since Ingram has his butterfly/needle for one more day. We were pretty excited and decided that we'd throw stuff in the pool for them to fetch for us, and we'd do it over and over again! After all that pool talk, we headed out to run a few errands before meeting some friends at...drum roll please...Chic Fil A. We were having playground withdrawals since Ingram hasn't been inside a restaurant in a few weeks and he loves their playground!

I also had another surprise for him; I took him to Barnes and Noble and we played at the train table for about 30 minutes. No one else was in the children's section and we were reading books, playing with the toys, and of course seeing how many trains we could connect together and actually make it up the hill.

We were at lunch with Veronica, Jack, and Ann Claire for about 2 hours and you know kids don't eat that long. Ingram probably only spent 10 total minutes eating and the rest of the time playing and telling me that his stomach didn't need any more food. That little stinker is going to get me in trouble with our Nutrition gal at St. Jude tomorrow; I'm sure he's lost even more weight since Tuesday. We finally left to get home before the girls did and play with Beau, but we had another little accident with the garage; this time it wasn't me or my car.

The girls and Ingram like to get out of the car at the front of the driveway and run down the driveway with Beau alongside them. Once I get the car close to the garage, I use my clicker and it starts to open. Well, this afternoon it didn't open fast enough and full speed running Ingram didn't duck enough and hit the bottom piece. I watched the whole thing happen and couldn't believe he got a cut and a knot on his head. Normally these sort of things are not a big deal cause we get bumps and bruises all the time; we're all tough and he likes to keep up with his girls (who were still at school). St. Jude has a different philosophy on those sort of things and they made us come in to get checked out and it was 3:00pm when this happened and Ingram skipped his nap today.

I say "made" specifically because I didn't want to go!! We were having the best day and it was going to get even better once the girls got home. Swimming in the pool for the first time, another soccer game, and of course homework to get ready for tests tomorrow and Friday. But we did the right thing and spent the next FIVE AND A HALF HOURS at St. Jude getting checked out, getting labs drawn, waiting on the results, getting the results, waiting to be called into the medicine room, waiting on the platelets to come down, and of course waiting on the platelet transfusion itself...oh the drama for a little bump on the head.

I guess I should explain why the drama since it's just a bump on the head as it was explained to me by several people. First, he's a new brain tumor patient. Second, he's counts were already hovering on the low side of things despite a blood transfusion on Friday and platelet transfusion on Sunday. Third, he's a new brain tumor patient. Fourth, low platelets mean no clotting and low blood means there's not enough blood. Fifth, he's a new brain tumor patient. Sixth, he could have internal bleeding on his brain from the bump and that would definitely be no good. Seventh, he's a new brain tumor patient. Do I really have to keep going with this list??

All in all, our day was great; we played and played and even when he got hurt, he was playing. I'll take an interruption any day over him not feeling well enough to run around and laugh and play...even if it means that we spend the better part of our afternoon and evening at the hospital. He's good now and sound asleep resting up for another super long day at St. Jude tomorrow with labwork that will consist of about 5 different stops in the lab drawing blood to make sure the chemotherapy isn't messing with his kidney function. It's a normal set of tests that everyone does; it's just very time consuming and makes for a long day. Other than that, we're good!