Time flies!

Boy does time fly when you are sick and running all over like a crazy person. Max had his first round of Rituxan medication done on Saturday at the hospital. All in all it wasn't bad and he didn't have any immediate, terrible side-effects. We got to the hospital around 3pm and were home before 11. I stayed home with him from church just in case he wasn't feeling good. It was a good thing because Sunday morning came and I was getting sick. Max was a real trooper through everything. His IV gave him some problems this time, but nothing that a hot compress couldn't fix. He will have 3 more weeks of this and that is when his immune system will really be kaput! We will try to get out as much as we can to aleviate the cabin fever.

Max's home bound teacher came for the first time on Monday. She is so nice, Ms. Josie he calls her. She has been a teacher for 22 years. California for most of it and the last 3 or 4 years here. He did great and got through a ton of stuff. I am feeling much better about things. He was missing so much school and would conintue to do so with his immune system being fragile. This is so great and she only comes 2x a week, Monday and Thursday, from 4:30pm-7pm.

Tuesday night brought some other problems. Max was eating some left-over Chicken Parmesean and got a bite "stuck" in his throat. Any of you familiar with our family would refer to this as a "slow slider." It was really rough on him and after 2 hours of it feeling like it wouldn't go down, he went to bed. If you have never experienced this it is horrible! Your chest gets all tight and you can't drink water to help. It will acutally make it worse and you just regurgitate it back up. Not even saliva can go down. He was realy stressed and upset that "everything is wrong with me" so sleeping was a relief to us all.

Morning came and he said he felt better so helped himself to some trix. Well, after the first bite came back up within a minute of it going down, we knew the whold ordeal wasn't over. Crazy! Never had it lasted that long with me. I'm guessing his esophagus was really irritated and swollen still. This went on all day. Sipping water, or swallowing his saliva, and within 5 minutes, it came back up. I took him to Dr. Bernstein (his pediatrician couldn't see him) with a bowl in tow. Like clockwork, hiccups followed by puking. The whole way there and in the waiting room. Dr. Bernstein was able to get him into an ENT at 4:30. So all day we tried different foods and liquids and nothing would stay down. I was totally stressed, and had New Beginnings for YW that night at 6:30. We got to the ENT (driving in the 30-40mph wind gusts) and came away with some cool pictures of his throat and a referral to see a gastroenterologist. Nothing was wrong with his thoat so it must be lower, in his esophagus. I knew that! But when a 9 year old is telling a Dr. that his throat hurts, that is what he goes by. We left the ENT at 6pm and I was able to make it back to the other side of town to our chapel at 6:35. Just in time. Jeff met me there and took Max home. Oh, I forgot to mention that Max was finally able to keep a popcicle down around 4pm. In total, he went 24 hours with eating or drinking nothing! Once he got home he had another popcicle and kept most of it down. He woke up at 10 and a little bit came back up. For breakfast he had some ice cream and 1/2 container of yogurt. I called the GI doctor right away and was able to get in at 3:00pm the same day! (it is now Wednesday, or yesterday) Not to fault the Doctors office but when you want something done, you really just have to do it your self.

So off we went, back accross town, to the GI Doctor. Nice office, friendly staff, not a bad experience at all! Long story short, Max is scheduled for an endoscopy on next Wednesday at 5:30am! I am so relieved to figure out what is going on. Last night he was able to eat normal food again, but I can't help but think that it is somehow related to his Rituxan treatment. With 3 more left, there was no way I was going to just wait it out and hope it doesn't happen again. Sorry it is so long. I know I left stuff out but my brain is shot. I have been sick with a cold since Sunday, yesterday being the sickest. I took 2 NiQuil last night and still feel wierd today. I'll be sure to use the spell checker but know that some of this might not make sense. Anything else I can remember I will post later. Simon has been sick too and is demanding to have breakfast now (only 10:30 am). I hope all is well with the rest of y'all. Have a good one!