Cousins
Trying to keep a child with leukemia healthy is not an easy task. We are constantly washing our hands, try to clean every toy he touches (especially if Laurel plays with it since she is bringing home tons of germs everyday being at daycare), and limiting visitors and outings to decrease exposure to bacteria that can be harmful since he has essentially no immune system to fight off infection. However, it's nice to see familiar faces, especially family when he is up for it and his white blood cell counts and ANC level are not too terribly low. So this weekend, my parents, sister and nephews stopped by for a visit. My oldest nephew turned 10 this past week and my youngest nephew turned 1 this past week as well. Laurel enjoyed some time to play outside with them while Elliott visited with the adults, but before everyone left, we got a chance to snap a photo of Elliott with his cousins. My youngest nephew is only 3 and a half months younger than Elliott, so it will be nice when the two of them can run and play together as they get older.
This next week coming up will be busy as well. I am out of town at a conference again this week, but fortunately I will be back on Tuesday. William has a super busy work schedule this week and Elliott has 4 days of chemo this week including another lumbar puncture on Tuesday. We are very blessed to have William's mom there this week to help with Elliott, his appointments, and Laurel as well. We anticipate his counts will continue to drop this week and he may start losing a bit of energy again, but so far, he has been full of energy, wanting to play, and moving around quite a bit, so it's great to have days like that.
We again want to thank everyone for the continued thoughts, prayers, cards, phone calls, texts, meals, playdates, and even reading this blog. We are very grateful and have not been able to respond to each person because it would take hours and we have been consumed trying to keep up with priorities at work and home, but know you are loved and appreciated. :-)