Skyler made counts so we had clinic yesterday.  In this phase his counts have to be high enough to be able to get chemo, and if they arent then we have to wait until they come back up.  So instead of drawing labs when we get to clinic and then risk being sent home if we didnt make counts, we had a home health nurse come the day before to draw his labs.  That way they can call me back with the results later that day.  I was hesitant to do it this way at first because when they had come before to help change Skyler's wound vac they just seemed unsanitary.  I work so hard to keep everything clean so I hate having people come in especially when I dont know what kind of patient they were just helping.  For all I know they just saw someone who was sick and coughing all over their scrubs.  Ever since his diagnosis I think about these kinds of things all the time.  Yup, I am now a germ a phobe.  Anyway, I agreed to have them come draw labs the day before because it would make our clinic visit alot faster because they could have the chemo ready if they already knew what his counts were.  Lets just say I totally regret this decision now.  It was a horrible experience.  For starters I hate letting anybody else touch Skyler's line.  Since we have been home I do everything for him.  I change the dressing, I give his IV anitfungal through the line, I change the caps and I also hep lock his line everyday.  So Im used to doing it a certain way and I take the time to do everything just right.  Even at clinic I get really tense when I have to let the nurse do everything.  But this home nurse came in and didnt even clean the line first before drawing the blood.  Even when I asked her to she only swiped it once and seemed put out that I had asked her to do that.  She also couldnt get any blood return so she had to change the caps and hardly cleaned anything.  She was also touching everything in her dirty bag with her gloves on and then still was touching his line with them.  I was so angry that I told her I would finish the rest.  This is supposed to be a "clean" procedure and it was anything but.  As soon as she left I started crying.  I try so hard to keep Skyler from getting any other infections, so it makes me so mad that someone would come in and put him at risk like that.  From now on I will be drawing his labs and I'll just hand over the blood when they come so they can take it to the lab.  So frustrating!  At least one good thing that came from this though, is that I realized that the nurses at clinic are actually good at what they do (At least better than this lady anyway)  So now I feel I can relax a little more when Im there.

At clinic we got a new nurse that we havent had before and I loved him.  He knew what he was doing and I felt really comfortable with him so it made our visit go alot smoother today.  Plus having our chemo already ordered and up from the pharmacy was great.  Since all of Skyler's counts looked good, they gave him the full dose of Vincristine and upped his Methotrexate dose again.  It feels good that he was able to actually receive a normal dose of chemo, but also a little scary because I dont know how his body will tolerate it.  He has done really well so far so Im hopeful that he will do ok.

I havent talked about his pressure sore on his bum for awhile but its actually closed.  Yay!  Before it closed though it was still tunneling up a little. (So there was still an opening under the skin)  I was having to put some medicine that kind of looked like felt up into it to keep it so it wouldnt close completely while it was still tunneling because that would cause an open little pocket that could get infected.  It was still tunneling a couple days before it closed so I just dont know if the tunnel closed as well or if its still open alittle under the skin.  The only way to know is if it gets infected, so that has me worried.  Also Skyler was in a lot of pain with it last night, so I ended up having to give him his Oxycodone to help.  That was worrisome also but it didnt look red or inflamed so Im hoping it was just because he sat on it too long or something like that.

Overall though Skyler is doing amazing.  I still look at him and just cant believe how good he looks.  He has a lot of energy, he is eating a little more, he is laughing and playing and walking more.  I even gave him a little haircut today because his hair is still growing like crazy.  It has a different feel to it though.  Its really soft and fuzzy like baby hair.  Its going to fall out again with this next phase of chemo but for now its so great seeing him with hair again.
 

Prayers are answered and miracles do happen.  Thank you all for your love, support and prayers.  It makes this so much easier knowing that Im not alone.

                                                                   

      Skyler wanted me to put this on the blog so everyone could see his new Mario sheets. He loves Mario.