We are in the midst of the squall and it sure aint pretty. Either the pain gets worse each cycle or, little by little, the pain medication is losing its punch. This morning he was begging us to go out and hunt him down some marijuana. And yeah, I do believe it would be the perfect drug for him at this time; however it is obviously out of the question. I did raise the subject of pain management at clinic on Thursday but no-one is willing to give him anything stronger. Apparently this is quite normal; doctors are very cautious and rarely will they prescribe strong opiates to children. It is getting so bad that I am now considering Neurontin. This is quite an effective drug used to treat neuropathy and is often used on patients who have undergone amputations but still have pain where the limb used to be. We were offered this several months ago but it would mean 9 pills daily, no good for a child who cannot swallow pills!

I am also a mess. A pathetic puddle on the floor in fact. The funky cells seen in his last blood work are preying on my mind. I am scouring the internet for more information but none of it really relates to our situation. These cells (poik, aniso, polychrom, metamyelo, atypical lymphocytes) should not be in the peripheral blood and the fact that they are is cause for concern. I have been reading about the ‘left shift’ but nowhere does it say “immature red and/or white cells in the peripheral blood are observed frequently in patients undergoing chemotherapy for cancers of the bone marrow” … I wish it would.

I haven’t mentioned Derry or his hockey lately but that’s because he stepped back from it after his dad died. He had no interest whatsoever. Well today he was back on the ice, trying out for the fall season. I was at home with Scott but according to David you would never know he hadn’t played in over 3 months. A comment from one of the assessors was overheard, “wow that kid sure is a freight train out there!” Yay. Derry is a freight train! He has further assessments tomorrow and hopefully in a couple of weeks we’ll know if he made it on to a team or not. Fingers crossed.

David is still suffering but at least we now know why. He has a cyst under the muscle in his shoulder!! Yikes. The doctor doesn’t want to try to remove it as it could be tricky so instead David has been ordered to attend physical therapy 3 times a week. Apparently the therapy can induce the cyst to shrink! David is so not chuffed. He just wants it gone.

Life don’t work like that though.