The nurses made Liam this sign

One day I am going to sit down with our calendar and count out every night we spent at Children’s Memorial Hospital. 4west became a second home. It is amazing that Liam adapted so well and made friendly with the nurses and doctors and all the other staff. Liam was frightened beyond belief of everything and everyone in March of 2010. I didn’t believe our Oncologist when he said that someday Liam would run happily through the halls as cancer treatment and hospital live is the norm. He was right. It was such a relief when Liam started to relax in the presence of a medical team, and when taking a blood pressure would no longer make him panic.  The reality is that adapting positively made everything easier. Transitions to anything can cause stress and I won’t say that he missed the hospital when he was home but it was routine that he tolerated.  We would frequently be admitted to the hospital on Sunday nights usually for a week at a time the longest being a consecutive month stay. We would always try to have a fun day without any mention of the admission and then sort of surprise the little fella. It was  usually a sad realization but Liam is always a roll with the punches kind of kiddo.  Our last planned stay at children’s ended June 23 we were lucky to complete the full antibody therapy without much incident. At home we still had to give daily injections for a week and lots of pills everyday but the most important part was the freedom to be home. Liam learned how to swallow pills that grown people would have trouble with(such a champ) Our visits were still pretty frequent for assessments and Blood or Platelet transfusions. It seems like from that day on we have made only positive strides toward returning to ‘normal’. The nightly iv hydration stopped on July 15th. Liam began eating with more vigor and we worked hard to have every calorie count. (The lightest Liam was through all of his treatment was in March 2011 at 23lbs, and I will with pride tell you that he gained a phenomenal 10lbs in the last 8 months. For you or I  10 pounds is like an over indulgent weekend but for my little man it has made all the difference.)   The oral cycles of Retinoic acid continued  through August 7th. That was a remarkable day. The thought that the yucky side effects are finished and Liam could start repairing all the damage done by his life saving treatment was unbelievable, we have been so blessed.

So, in August we started a testing schedule of every 3months for 2 years.  We took our first well deserved  break to Michigan with the blessing of all our doctors and a quick call by a cautious mommy to the local hospitals. We truely didn’t miss a beat with treatment ending in time to start preschool august 30th.