Phits and Starts

When last we met our hero, he'd been cleared to return to school--a request he put in daily with management (management, of course, being me and Dustin). When this past Monday came, we were able to oblige his request. We took the obligatory first day photos (albeit with more tears than usual) and all piled into the car to drive him off to school where the OG Phin Phans (the carpool student-helpers in the parking lot) would whisk him off and escort him to his class, as if it were merely Thursday, March 24, and the last seven months had been imagined.

As the van slowed and the door slid open, he wrapped his arms around me, gave me a tight squeeze and firm kiss, said "I love you, Mama. I love you", then leapt from the car and confidently strode in the direction of his classmates, not stopping even once to look back.Oh, how this little boy has grown! A year ago, he'd have cried if I dropped him off at school, told me it was "too hard to say good-bye to Mama" and asked me never to drop him off again. He literally meant he did not want me, his mother, to ever drop him off, which left the heavy lifting of drop-off duty to his dad (which was best case scenario, really, since my teaching schedule wouldn't have allowed the necessary amount of time to drop him and still get to my classroom by the first bell, and my mama-heart probably couldn't have withstood many mornings of that lament). This morning, though, Dustin, the girls and I had enough time to park and watch him from afar as he lined up with his class, played "rocks, paper, scissors" with friends and jump up and down in excitement as they greeted him one-by-one. He lasted until just after lunchtime when his teacher let me know he seemed a little tired and might need to start off his return with half days.

The next day, we planned for the same half day schedule, but he vowed, as he was helped out of the van by a Phin Phan, that he would be staying for "the long day" with his classmates. I lingered nearby at a coffee shop, tallying up final grades for a fully online class I'm adjunct teaching while waiting for confirmation of a half day pickup for Phin that never came. His teacher texted: "He's doing great! I just asked him and he wants to stay the full day." I celebrated with an oatmilk shaken espresso (Phin was unable to drink cow milk as a baby and has never really grown a taste for it as a drink ever since; oatmilk is his preferred milk) in honor of my boy; he and Dustin celebrated his full day with an ice cream (he has a taste for ice cream regardless of milk type).

The week went on as though we'd rewound the clock to the "before times" again. He stayed another full day on Wednesday before passing out on the couch after school from, what we assumed was, exhaustion. When he awoke, though, his congestion was audible. Each of our kids has allergies in varying degrees, although, none have ever compared to Avonlie's...until Phin's treatment. Each time he came home between rounds of chemotherapy, he spent half of his first few days miserably with allergies: congestion, sneezing, coughing, mucus and itchy eyes were among the top symptoms.After a few days, they'd settle enough for him to have milk symptoms the remainder of his visit home. Since he returned in August, though, he's had random bouts of allergies and his blood work has confirmed high eosinophils each time. Naturally, we assumed the same. He was coughing and congested in the morning, but fever-free and desperate not to miss his first field trip, which I was chaperoning.

About halfway through the class trip, Phin--who'd been less boisterous but still engaged throughout the visit to the Children's Museum of Pooler--wrapped his arms around my legs and said "Let's go home now, Mama." I knew immediately that something was wrong.

In the parking lot, I strapped him into his carseat and his chest heaved up and down. He put the palm of his hand to his chest and throat and told me that it hurt. His breathing was labored and shallow. I had the pediatrician on the phone before making my way to the driver's side of the car. Luckily, Coastal Pediatrics has an office mere minutes from the museum. I was in their parking lot before getting off the phone. Phin's pulse oximeter reading was 90. A nebulizer alubterol treatment brought him up to 95 and for the next 24 hours, we watched and listened closely with a pulse ox in one hand and the phone in the other, ready to dial 911. 

I don't know what we were expecting for his first week back, really. Was it for everything to be like the way it was before he got leukemia? Did we think we would just drop him off at school, watch him walk into the building and jump right into whatever the rest of his kindergarten class has been working on for the past eight weeks like he hadn't missed a beat? Whatever we were expecting for Phin's return to school, last week showed us that we need to pump the brakes a little bit. To recap what happened, he lasted for a half a day on Monday, full days on Tuesday and Wednesday, and a negligible amount of time on his school field trip on Thursday. So two and a half days out of five for his first week of kindergarten, and the price of those two and a half days was two separate visits to the pediatrician. 

But he did respond quickly to the nebulizer albuterol treatments, which was awesome. He was also able to see a pediatrician very quickly, and that pediatrician correctly determined what to do with such speed that Phin was on the mend again by the weekend. 

Speaking of Coastal Pediatrics, I'd like to take a moment to once again sing their praises. Twice in the past two years, two of our kids came down with something that was kind of extreme and scary. Both times, Dr. Callan was the physician we saw, and in both instances he was invested, showed genuine concern, advised us well, and took the time to check in outside of office hours. The care that we received is always unparalleled, something out of bygone eras where doctors made house calls only now the house calls are phone calls, and they came from our doctor at the end of the day and, again, first thing in the morning because his patient, my son, is heavy on his mind...because he genuinely cares. I think it's something really rare and special that they have there. 

Phin as No-Noggin from Curious George's
Halloween Boo Fest

When I called to update my dad* on Phin's sickness, he told me that even though Phin looks, behaves and seems like he's the same kid he was before the leukemia and the chemo, in reality his body's been battered. His bloodwork might look like something that approaches normal now, but what we can't see is the short- and long-term toll that the disease and its treatment have taken on him. There's no way to know what's a fluke respiratory virus and its effects vs. an issue in his lungs caused by the treatment we used to eradicate the cancer from his tiny body. In truth, we don't know what the future of Phin's health will look like, how many starts and stops we'll see before things level out, if they level out, and this incident was the first of many of these reminders to come.

Oatland Halloween Hike 2022 with
Spidey, Cinderella and No-Noggin

One thing (of the many) that we've learned from all of this is to celebrate every day--to put as much living into each day as possible, to fill all of our days with the joy of exploring and experiencing life as much as we can manage. In that spirit, we managed to take in this year's Halloween Hike at Oatland Island Wildlife Center (Phin's most favorite place, though he felt some disappointment we couldn't visit with all of the animals). We got to visit a pumpkin patch with some of our closest family-like friends. We picked pumpkins. We carved pumpkins; I let the kids be in charge of decorating the house and we are looking forward to each day that comes and all the love and laughter it will bring.

Phin "camouflaging" himself with the pumpkins.
Nothing to see here...

*For those who have inquired or been wondering, my dad recently had bloodwork and testing done, too; I am happy to report he is currently in remission along with his grandson.