Well, I’d love to have great news to report about the last 2 days, but unfortunately I don’t. Eli has been feeling very tired and sick to his stomach. We try to give him medicine to help with his stomach and appetite and he just throws it all up (including any liquid we managed to get down him). Medicine always takes 2 attempts and sometimes we don’t get it all down because of all the vomiting. We got concerned enough about his weight (down to 31 pounds) that we called the Doctors and asked that he be put on nutrition. So tomorrow morning we are going in to get his nutrition status tested and get him some nutrition in a bag. He just doesn’t feel like eating.
Lacey works all day on getting something inside of him and then a nightly medicine makes him throw it all up. It’s extremely frustrating. I know our friends with kids fighting cancer are nodding their heads and muttering “Amen” under their breath. I hesitated to post these pictures, but I thought it would be good for people to have a visual of what we’re dealing with. Perhaps it will be images to motivate you to pray that Eli will start to feel better and eat more!
http://picasaweb.google.com/HornIT/InNewYork/photo#5151433538056896770 http://picasaweb.google.com/HornIT/InNewYork/photo#5151433615366308114 http://picasaweb.google.com/HornIT/InNewYork/photo#5151433701265654050 So basically the last two days have been spent in our room without much anything else. It’s almost just as well since we’re starting to get some Iowa weather here in NYC. It’s gone from mid 40s to the teens! Thankfully it’ll be back up to the mid 40s this weekend so a few trips to Central Park might be in order if his counts are still ok (his counts have actually been very good and he’s not neutropenic yet)!
One highlight (for me) today was stumbling across a Brasilian joint a block away from the Ronald! Eli has been somewhat craving strawberry smoothies lately (takes a few drinks, that’s a craving) so I’ve been dropping $5 on smoothies that go largely unconsumed. Tonight I found a new place called Tropicalia and to my surprise, I saw a bunch of Brasilian food that I recognized from my trip to Brasil (namely a beautiful can of Guarana soda – or pop as we call it in Iowa)! The cool part was that the guy running the joint was about my age and from southern Brasil so we chatted for a while as I enjoyed a Guarana Diet (pronounced die- each). Yeah, it cost me a $1.50 for a can of pop, but my co-workers Jeremy and Renata will tell you that I’d pay twice that for a Guarana when I haven’t had one for a while. 🙂 It’s made from Guarana root and naturally has a lot of caffeine. It’s Brasil’s Mt. Dew. Anyway, they have a smoothie made from a Brasilian berry that has more antioxidants than pomegranates or blueberries and tastes great. There’s my food review. Get an Acai Smoothie at Tropicalia on York Avenue (mixed with passion fruit) when you come to New York. Yeah, it’s $5.25, so just don’t make it a daily habit. I asked him if there was a Brasilian Churrascaria in New York and he gave me directions to one, so we’ll definitely have to check that out and give you a review!
That’s it for today. As always, thanks for praying for our family as we seek out God’s plan for all of this. These are the times that it gets challenging. When you watch your little guy get way too skinny and feel cruddy all day you start to feel like it’s not fair and you want so badly to take the pain on yourself. All you can do is pray for healing and know that the chemo is doing it’s job. All in God’s time…