Tuesday, November 26, 2013

The Good Times

I can try to tell you how much fun I had today on the outpatient ward and afterwards with Adi, but it probably won't make sense.

We got to the hospital early, and Tuesdays are really slow on the outpatient ward, so we got ourselves settled in a chair and Adi started up his iPad. I wandered out to check on where a nurse might be, and I saw one of our favorite inpatient ward nurses, Hadas. "You come all the way down here and don't say hi?" I demanded, and as she protested that she had JUST WALKED IN THREE SECONDS AGO, another mother replied with a grin, "Hey, there are VIPs here," and gestured to her own son. And just then two other families we've grown close with came in, and there were hugs and kisses all around, and then one of the nurses was all, "Adi's Mommy, we want to start his chemo and we need you to verify Adi's ID number, and I was like, "Dude. I am SOCIALIZING here."

So we got Adi hooked up to his chemo and Hadas came in to give him a hug, and the other families came in for their own treatments, and one of the kids is currently on steroids and CANNOT STOP EATING and he was describing everything he was eating at the moment, and everything he was going to eat later, and everything he ate earlier, and it was really, really funny. And his dad is always funny, and he was doing routines, narrating everything that was happening in the treatment room, and I guess you really had to be there, but it really was funny.

At one point, one of the nurses came in, and this dad had her model the latest in nursing uniforms, pointing out how her shoelaces coordinated with the strap for her name tag -- again, you really had to be there, but trust me, if you had been there, you would have been laughing. I laughed a lot, and so did everyone in the room, and I mean great GALES of laughter, like people who are NOT thinking about cancer. It was awesome.

We finished super early and everyone clapped and sang for Adi as he was unhooked and we left, and we went to meet Shirlee for lunch, except that the closer we got to the restaurant, the more strongly Adi protested that he wanted to go home, so we pulled into the parking lot and Shirlee took one look at Adi and said, "Let's go to my house and eat there," and he was down with that plan, so that's what we did, and I remembered how grateful I am to have such good friends, who love my son as much as I do and who GET IT.

And Adi decided he wanted to sleep at Shirlee's house, so that's what he's doing now -- after he spent the whole afternoon there -- and he made cookies with Shirlee (well, he was in the house while Shirlee made cookies), and he's just so HAPPY to be there, even if he's exhausted.

So it was a good day, and we need good days.

2 comments:

Mara said...

Thank G-d for good days.

And Shirlee.

Love you all.

Marnie said...

So glad. Love y'all bunches and bunches!