Once again...a day of surprises.

We had a 12 hour day today. We left our house at 6:30 in the morning and got home at
6:30 in the evening. We actually thought we would be leaving the hospital rather early because he got in early for radiation. While Pat and I were eating in the cafeteria, Ashton's wonderful doctor, Michelle Monje, came walking in looking for us. She had got the results of his blood work from a few hours earlier and wanted him to have a transfusion today, immediately after he woke. His red blood cell count had dropped to the point where one was needed.
That was fine for us...Wednesdays are the days Pat comes with me and my mom picks the kids up at school because they have half days. It originally started because Ashton would still be having a nap on those days and she wanted to have the grandkids for the afternoon. It works well because she does need a break during the week. She has been getting up early and coming with me...thank you Mom!

We got to the day hospital and had to calm Ashton down a bit because he was still feeling some effects of the anesthesia. But, it is comfortable there, bed, blankets, flat screen TV...we weren't complaining. The transfusion would actually take 3 hours to give to him so we called to let our family know we would be a bit late. He did really well and he seemed to get color back in his cheeks almost immediately. He did have much more energy also. Yesterday was a very, very tired day for him. He didn't even want to watch TV. He just rested in bed all day. Today though, he was sitting up in bed playing, eating ice chips and licking the salt off saltine crackers. That is the most food to touch his mouth in weeks.

Ashton was having low white cell counts last week too so Saturday and Sunday I got to give him a shot to boost them back up. It was pretty traumatic for him. I got to practice on a nurse on Friday...she actually let me poke her with a needle full of saline to get the feel of things. What a brave lady...but it worked. I felt confident enough to do it to Ashton the next day. I had always wanted to be a nurse, but not for my own child. This experience so far has made me start thinking of doing that again. Or maybe just volunteering my time for an organization like Jacob's Heart. I feel such a strong need to help others who are and will be going through this. But, I'm jumpin the gun a bit here....I need to focus on Ashton getting cured first. After that, I will decide what to do.

We found out today that Ashton' s official end date is the 29th instead of the 28th.
They had forgotten about the time he was going to have radiation but they decided to
reposition him instead. So, that's OK....10 more days. And the greatest thing is we get to celebrate the end in a huge way, with all our friends at the skate night event on the 31st.
There will be a banner hanging on the corner of Scotts Valley Dr and Mt. Hermon Rd advertising it. I am so amazed at the lengths people go to for others...Not much good can come out of this whole experience with cancer, but so far there has been something that I had no idea about...the hearts of others, they can be huge! Thank you all!