Do-overs

The weekend Eve was diagnosed with cancer, we were supposed to take the family on a trip to visit Matt's grandmother in South Carolina. Needless to say, we canceled our hotel reservation and checked into Motel Duke instead.

Five months later, we got up the courage to let Eve leave the house, and we embarked upon our trip to Greenville. We packed lots of hand sanitizer, Clorox wipes, and our own food (to avoid going into any fast food restaurants and picking up uninvited guests of the germ variety). Matt and I sanitized the hotel room as best as we could and hoped for the best.

After arriving at Grandma's apartment, we decided to take the kids into the courtyard and let them run around and get some fresh air. Matt's grandma lives in a retirement community, so when anyone under the age of 65 appears, we stick out like sore thumbs. That, and the speed at which the kids move must appear Mach-like compared to the residents.

I was holding Natalie when a resident approached us. She said, "Is this the little girl who was in the dining room today?" No, ma'am. We just got here a few minutes ago. We haven't gotten a chance to get to the dining room yet.

Pleasant-enough resident: "Let me look at her and make sure it's not her." So either A) she just didn't trust me or B) the little girl in the dining room had done something so awful that this woman believed I must obviously be trying to conceal our identities. After determining my daughter was not the same girl, the woman added, "You can't go to the dining room now; it's closed. Supper is already over."

This was at 5:00, by the way.

No worries about that. We headed over to Matt's uncle's house where his aunt fed the kids pizza, juice, Poptarts, and cupcakes. Then they almost cried to the heavens when Aunt Karen gave them Easter bags filled with candy! Oh, what to eat first? It was like vampires at a blood bank. We let Nat eat half of her chocolate bunny, and made her save the rest for later. Unfortunately for Peter Cottontail, there was some sort of accident, and shards of milk chocolate rabbit laid inside the bag. Natalie identifed the remains and said a few kind words, something along the lines of, HOW COULD YOU DO THAT TO MY BUNNY?!? in Matt's general direction. The next evening, Aunt Karen bought Nat a new chocolate bunny and all was well in the universe. They also received their first fart toys. It was far more exciting than I can put into words. The children are already asking to go visit Uncle Steve and Aunt Karen again so they can "toot and eat candy."


I only wish we could have taken this dog kennel home. It was a good place to put them when they were crashing and burning from the sugar rush. It also makes me question the money spent on a double bed and crib at the hotel.

Today, Eve and I returned to Duke, fingers crossed that her ANC would be high enough to get chemo. Nurse Brooke let Eve assemble everything they needed for a port access. As cute as it is, it's sad that my child knows which test tubes and which dressings she needs to pull out of the cart.

Lucky for Eve, her ANC came back at 1144. Not a great place to start knocking it down again, but it will work. Counts, check. Chemo, check. De-access, check. It was a relatively short day for us- only a 5-hour round trip to Duke and back. Now she is enjoying a nice litle Zofran nap.

3 down, 2 to go.

As soon as I walked in the door, the telephone rang. "Hello, Mrs. Griffith? I am calling from the Kids Wish Foundation. We grant wishes to terminally ill children." [Insert dramatic pause here where I stopped breathing because I thought someone knew something about Eve that I didn't know.]

"Can we count on your support this year while we help grant these children their wish?"