Doing well at home, again.

Whoops. When we finally got out of the hospital I forgot to update this space as well.

After 13 days admitted at the Stollery, Ezra was discharged. We stayed in Edmonton for three more days in order to finish out his week of treatment and then finally got to head home.

Ezra’s blood counts were not high enough at that point to restart his at-home chemo, but he was definitely on the mend.

After being out of school for 2.5 weeks, Ezra voiced hesitation about going back. But, on that first day he happily said goodbye to me and ran off to play on the playground before the bell rang – a first since school started. Over the last two weeks he has continued to enjoy going to school and has stayed healthy. A true answer to prayer.

Ezra’s counts were finally high enough on Tuesday this week and he resumed his chemo after another month-long break. Ezra’s counts actually made a significant leap in one week. The biggest I have ever seen in his bloodwork. Nearly all of his numbers are on the low end of normal (instead of being low or critically low).

While this is a good thing, it’s also one of those weird things as a cancer mom. Anything outside of what has become “normal” for Ezra feels alarming to me. But, the nurse I spoke to this week was unconcerned about the jump, and so I will also force myself to be unconcerned about those numbers.

This time, Ezra’s chemo doses have been cut in half and his medical team will adjust his doses in response to his counts until he reaches a dose that keeps his blood work results in the target range consistently. Hopefully this means we will deal with critically low hemoglobin, platelets and neutrophils on a much less frequent basis.

And hopefully we can stay out of the Stollery outside of planned appointments.

In the lasts two weeks, as a family we celebrated Thanksgiving and mine and Cody’s 10th wedding anniversary. Last year we missed truly celebrating these events together. It was such a blessing to have a home full of family on Thanksgiving and a night away with Cody for our anniversary.

Ezra also got to start Taekwondo. Elijah is doing it as well and got to start while Ezra was admitted at the Stollery. While we were concerned Ezra would be behind after missing the first four lessons, he has done remarkably well. Both boys really enjoy Taekwondo and will each get something different out of it. Elijah’s ability to focus and concentrate on precise and slower movements is being tested and stretched, while Ezra is getting some sneaky physical therapy with all the balance and leg work that they do. I told a friend this week that I feel like registering Ezra in Taekwondo was an act of accidental genius because he’s excited about doing everything his physical therapist has mentioned he needs to work on, without knowing that’s what he’s doing.

Coming up: Ezra and I will head back to Edmonton next week for a single day appointment. We will then head home and continue with his at-home chemo. We pray that he makes it through a whole month without critical blood counts and we begin to see some stability with his bone marrow production.