The Chemo Kid

Updates on Jack
One chemo down....Jack did great today. Besides some time delays to get insurance stuff worked through, the first chemotherapy went off without a hitch. On our way to chemo Jack said, "I wish I wasn't the chemo kid, it is so boring." As far as Jack is concerned boredom outweighs most other bad things he has to go through. I had 4 bags of stuff to carry in to the chemo trip today, filled with activities for Jack to do, a couple of new things I had bought for him from the clearance shelf at Walgreens yesterday, a portable dvd player with 4 movies to watch, and he is already bored just on the drive there. It looked like we were moving in. Filled out the paperwork, then they sent us back. I had put on the emla cream over the port an hour and half before, so the stick in his port only hurt a little. They hooked him up to the iv line and took his blood for his counts. 2 hours later the nurse came back and said that they were having a hard time getting insurance to work out, because they were not an authorized provider. Well, if only someone would have told me 2 hours ago, I could have given the name of our case manager, who can make anything work out it seems. I gave them her number, they decided it would take a couple of days to get approved so they sent us over to Hendrick Hospital to the pediatric wing, who was an authorized provider, and the nurse followed us over there, signed more papers, then waited for the medicine to be sent up. At about 4:30 we started chemo. We finished at about 7:00p.m. and came home. Jack did well, although ofcourse slightly bored at times. (The office called the case manager and within 15 minutes everything was approved and worked out, so they said we could come back and get the chemo there, but we had already dirtied a hospital room, and the nurse thought it was easier to stay put where we were, so we stayed put).
Jack seems to be doing well, not feeling sick at all, he got home to see that Rob had aired up the tires in all the bikes, so currently Jack, Derek, and Sophie are all riding their bikes out front (eeeek!!!!).
I am staying inside because a. Jack's not supposed to ride a bike right now. b. I would drive him crazy saying be careful 100 times a minute. c. I would be even more of a nervous wreck than I am now. But he is a 6 yr. old boy who has been sitting still for 6 hours. And I think that the no bike riding probably means no crazy bike riding, jumps, riding fast, slamming on brakes...and Jack is still on training wheels which prevent him from going anything but slow. So I will let him play and have fun with his daddy, but just not look.
Our next chemo date is one week from today, Tuesday, the 16th. Same bat time, same bat channel, and now we know all the paperwork is taken care of we should be in and out in 3-4 hours next week. Thanks for your prayers, today was good.
Love, Tammy