Weekend.

Watts' counts flew up on the neupogen shots and allowed us to have a more normal weekend. We even went to part of the church service and the big, church-wide Thanksgiving dinner (but kept a wide-berth from the crowd). Watts was his normal wild self (aka arching his back and attempting to wrangle himself out of my arms constantly) and ended up crawling around on the floor during the music portion of the night. Totally germ-free floors, I'm sure ;) It was strange but wonderful to not be in the hospital or isolated at home.

His ANC (which helps measure his ability to fight off infection) won't be that high again for awhile, but we are hoping to find some sort of balance of protecting Watts, particularly during flu season, and of resuming some sort of "normal" life. It is difficult to navigate through because even a low-grade fever will send us to the hospital. We have talked to Watts' doctors and they all seem to agree that we have to use discernment and do what is best for our family... and that while we need to keep Watts away from possible viruses and infections, it also is not healthy for Watts to grow up in a bubble. Ambiguous stuff... I am sure that it is going to take some time to figure out. We will also have to see how his counts respond to the next round of chemo.

Because his counts flew up so quickly, we are currently scheduled to start the next round of treatment on Wednesday morning. We will double-check his counts on Tuesday (just to make sure they haven't dropped significantly since stopping the neupogen) and then do the lumbar puncture and bone marrow biopsy first thing on Wednesday morning. The bone marrow biopsy will be to check that Watts is still in remission. It is expected that he is (particularly because we just finished a lot of high dose chemo) but we are still nervous. Prayers, of course, appreciated.