Phinish Line Extended

Phin and his double purple popsicles.

Back in 2015, before Phin was born when our girls were still pretty small, Dustin ran the Palmetto Bluff Half Marathon. I don't remember all the details: one of our best friends, Garrett, was out there, trying to finish the race, despite being incredibly sick for days beforehand--I was texting Christy (his wife) about how he was managing; I think it had rained and vaguely remember parking our car in a muddy field to watch Dustin cross the finish.

After 3 hours had passed, I'd gotten kind of worried. Christy had told me that Dustin wasn't too far out from the finish line when she'd last heard from Garrett, yet he hadn't arrived when I expected him to, given his pace and the little distance he had left. I remember, as the sun started to get higher in the sky, thinking about the sunscreen I didn't apply to baby Obelia sleeping in the carrier on my back, holding Av's hand tight so I wouldn't lose her in the crowd of finishers as I squinted and scanned the gaits and images of runners in the distance for my husband--pushing out thoughts of a potential asthma attack or injury on the last few miles. I felt anxious and antsy for him to arrive, for resolution.

This is almost exactly how I've been feeling for most of today. 

After our continuous seven-day countdown, working hard to keep our promise not to get ANY injuries, checking off all the things we want to do for "the last time" in the hospital, and starting the beginnings of a "Bucket List of Things we will do When we go Home," Phin and I, on maybe our seventh lap around the unit, got the news that our "One More Day" countdown had been extended. 

"Wednesday is the new Tuesday" his oncologist had told me without the slightest hint of irony. 

I probably sighed or exhaled louder than I meant to before saying, "You're kidding, right?" 

Dear reader, he was not, in fact, kidding at all. 

Phin is fine. It's not because of Phin that our accommodations at the Children's Hospital of Savannah have been extended and I am so continuously grateful for that. He received some red blood the other day but has "held onto" that red blood nicely and has started to show signs of actually making his own. His hemoglobin, white blood cell count, platelets and absolute neutrophil count (ANC) are all on the rise, just as they should be. His molar is in; the swelling has subsided and the fevers are long gone. We are here for an extra night because the OR got backed up and they couldn't squeeze us all into one day.  

Phin and Nurse Anna looking up animals
on her phone and in the new book
she gifted him.

Phin didn't really hear that conversation because he was too busy finding some nurses to coax into playing with him. I worried he'd be upset. After all, he had told every single person we saw all day that we were "going home tomorrow."

I wanted this news to roll off of me like: "NBD, what's another night," but the truth is I was really disappointed to hear it. The countdown Phin and I had been keeping was as much for me as it was for him. A countdown to bringing him home to be with his sisters, to him taking an actual bath for the first time in five months, to actually unpacking his things. It's a countdown to maybe not having to immediately run to the ER if he has a fever, to him being able to play with water balloons or in the rain without fear of getting wet, to him being able to talk to and play with friends again. A countdown to being in the same room with my husband for more than ten minutes, kissing all three of my kids good-night and everyone being under one roof together. A countdown to navigating what's next and making it as normal as we've tried to make these last five months only better because we'd all be home together and Phin wouldn’t be in a hospital fighting cancer. A countdown to, hopefully, the after times. One more day just feels really long when you aren’t expecting it.

Dada and Phin

Dustin swung by for a visit; I left the hospital and picked the girls up from school to see them for the first time in a week, and when I returned to Phin, I came equipped with a mental list of all the good things about staying an extra night. It consisted of a better bone marrow sample when they take the biopsy, an extra day to see his numbers rise, an extra layer of safety while his immune system grows stronger before subjecting him to whatever virus is waiting to come home with his sisters from school, Phin's safety in this hospital bubble, time for the girls to make their "Welcome Home" banner, more time to appreciate everything about not being in the hospital every day...I mentally thumbed through my list over and over.

Back in 2015, when Dustin finally crossed that finish line at the half marathon, the anxiety and antsiness I felt subsided; he was not injured or struggling to breathe; he was smiling and happy for having successfully completed the race; Obelia's head was not burnt from the sun; I didn't lose my oldest child in the crowd. All was just as it should be. But the question still remained: what had taken him so long? It turns out, he'd missed a course marker by accident and ended up running two extra miles. 

"Two extra miles?!" I'd repeated, stunned by his admission. 

"What's an extra mile or two when you've already done 13?"

When I broke the news to Phin about our extra night, he said: "Two more days again?" I nodded; he turned to the nurse's station, asked for a purple popsicle please then sped off, squealing "can't catch me" down the hallway on his bike, the fluorescent lights shining like an artificial sunset. He didn't seem upset or disappointed; this extra night wasn’t going to hurt anyone, least of all, Phin. Relief swept over me then; the anxiety and antsiness subsided. 

"I’m sorry your discharge got pushed back, but we sure will lose a lot of joy on this floor when you go," one of our nurse's said, tearing open a double purple popsicle and handing it to me as she smiled, watching Phin round the corner at the end of the hall and disappear. 

I shrugged, "We’ll miss all of you, too. Besides, what’s another day?"