Bad News Blog III/"Home"

 Hello Internet,

After ten days of treatment in the hospital, Monkey has come home.  Right now, she is sleeping in her bedroom, and I am in my bedroom with Noodle for the first time in over a week while she does her nursing class for the new baby Kangaroo that is coming..  I keep kissing Noodle’s back and breathing in her skin.  Words cannot adequately express how much I missed her.  Nothing can.  She is my best friend, and I am so happy to have her nearby.

It is still scary.  Monkey’s official diagnosis is Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL), which is the most common form of childhood cancer from what I’ve read.  It also has a pretty solid survival rate, and her numbers are exactly where they should be.  All of that said, it is our first night at home since her diagnosis, and it is also the first night where she hasn’t had one of us in the bedroom with her bed nearby.  It will be difficult to sleep in my bed without being able to check on her or see her vitals, but it will become our strange new normal.

There are a lot of strange things about your child having cancer that are nearly impossible to explain.  There is a sort of rage against the gods that no one can understand.  Ever since receiving the diagnosis, my wife and I have had little choice in what to do.  In theory, we could refuse treatment and seek second opinions.  In practice, anything that is not done to help her is done to hurt her, even as the medications that are used to heal her are also tearing her apart from the inside.

She is a full week into chemo.  It will take a few months before the iconic bald head comes into play, but there is so much else that happens.  Her body is so thin and frail right now, partly from an inability to keep food down and partly from muscle atrophy.  I hadn’t noticed until she had a bath when we got home (I had to help wash the port she had put into her chest for treatment).  She threw up as soon as we got home and clogged the sink with cheetos (not the healthiest, but it was a bribe to keep her eating; a lot has changed in how I parent).

There is also the strange irony of what cancer is today versus what it was when I was younger.  Survival rate for ALL is actually very high if you get it early enough, which we seemed to have done.  It is time intensive, and it will be difficult.  She will suffer a lot, and we will be there with her while it happens.  All of us will be exhausted, especially with a new baby coming to join the family.  Despite all of that, at the end of the day, this is much more like a normal sickness than I would have ever imagined it would be.  Sure, it is big, but it is no longer the death sentence of my childhood.

All things considered, we are glad to have her back home, and we are willing to do whatever we need to do to see her happy and healthy.  It will be a long two years, but as I said before, any time with her is better than no time with her.  Even with all of the potential side effects and the struggles, I got to sing her to sleep tonight in her own bed, and I will get to keep hearing her laugh and argue for years to come, and that is worth any price.

Sincerely,

RWS

P.S.

Books

0. Main: The Giver by Lois Lowry

One Piece Vol. 91, Ch. 917: “Food Treasure Barge”—921 55%  (7—11)

1. Sun: Boruto Vol. 5, Ch. 18: “The Hand”-19 50% (3–4)

2. Mon: Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Vol. 3, Ch.19: “Together Forever”-25 22% (3–9)

3. Tue: Samurai 8: The Tale of Hachimaru Vol. 1, Ch. 2: “Visitor From the Sky”—6 17% (2—6)

4. Wed: My Hero Academia Vol. 10, No. 82: “What A Twist!”-89 11% (2–9)

5. Thu: One-Punch Man Vol. 10, Punch 52: “Locker Room”-54.1 60% (7–10)

6. Fri: My Hero Academia: Vigilantes Vol. 4, Ep. 31: “On Tour”—35 44% (5–9)

7. Sat: (Fan Fiction) Final Fantasy: Fated bytinygaia Ch. 88% (45—50)

8. Squirrel: One Piece Vol. 17 Ch. 156

Reading Order:

-Fiction: Pyramids by Terry Pratchett 100%

-Library: Trans Medicine: The Emergence and Practice of Treating Gender by Stef M. Shuster 100%

-YA: The Giver by Lois Lowry 100%

-DnD5e: Player’s Handbook by Wizards of the Coast 0% (0–?)

-Non-Fiction: Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat 0% (0–?)

View from the Cheap Seats by Neil Gaiman 26% (130–502)

—Reread—

Games

0. Main: .hack//MUTATION

1. Sun1: .hack//MUTATION

Final Fantasy X-2 HD Remaster 29% (15/52hrs)

2. Mon: Omega Quintet 0% (0/47hrs) Just no.

Mass Effect 2 Jean Replay (Until Further Notice)

3. Tue: DnD5e

4. Wed: Dragon Age: Origins Kallian Tabris 14% (10/74hrs)

5. Thu: Movie

6. Fri: God of War ?% (??/33hrs)

7. Sat: .hack//MUTATION 57% (40/50hrs(13/23hrs))

Xenogears 9% (6/66hrs)

Shows

0. Main: Batman: The Animated Series

1. Critical Role: Campaign 2: “Rebirth” 98% (139—141)

2. Anime: FLCL 0% (1—6)

3. Owned: Digimon: Adventure Myotismon Arc 25% 23–28 (3–8) 

4. Netflix: Moving Pictures Season 3 17% (2—6)

Seven Deadly Sins Season 1 8% (3–24)

5. Disney+: Star Wars: Visions 56% (6–9)

6. HBO: Batman 81% (26–31)

7. Critical Role Campaign 2 15—17 82%

Moon Knight 17% (2–6)

Movies: Promare

Firefly 7% (2—14)

Starship Troopers

Dumbo

X-Men

Solo: A Star Wars Story