Phin greets 2023, depheats Covid-19

Hey there, Phin phans! Dustin here with a quick check-in. Let's get it! 

A common lament of parents of childhood cancer survivors–and maybe for all those who live with trauma–is that we must endlessly pass these milestones like riders trapped on a merry-go-round, and while we fixate on them, the rest of the world dissolves into nothing but a blur of motion and color. 

"We are approaching the one-year mark," a friend messages me regarding her daughter's illness. "I still get teary eyed."

Perhaps if we could re-order Creation, we might trade this cyclical course for a more linear one, maybe with an Earth that rotates on its axis but doesn't revolve around the sun, so that the race would become point to point instead of lap after lap after lap. An infinite line of days, one after the next, like the beads on our son’s cancer string–an never ending thread stretching on forever–but no more years. No more wheel of grim anniversaries. No more bundling up against the gray winters of observance. No more reliving. 

The easier thing might just be to cure this insufferable disease. But, should we fail in that, may we find the power to reshape the cosmos to escape the reminders of our suffering.

Here's another year --a small thing among the stars yet memories loom

Medical Updates
Boring bloodwork at the January clinic visit! Everything popped in the normal range for once. A huge relief!

Aside from that report, Phin's rebooted immune system really earned its keep this month. He caught Covid in early January–something we'd tried hard to prevent. He had a good run. (So did I.) This time around, everyone here got it except for Av, and while it took Neesha and me out of commission for a couple of days (mercifully, not at the same time), it barely slowed Phin down at all. A low fever. A sniffle. He was back at full strength by the time Neesha, Obi, or I even felt bad enough to test...which of course became its own challenge. (Phin's has more energy when he's at 10% than I do when I'm at full strength.) 

Then, once the Covid cloud lifted, some other unidentified respiratory virus arrived and wormed its way through our ranks, this one taking up residence in Obi's lungs and necessitating a late-night ER visit for her.  

With that sickness, just like with Covid, Phin sailed over the pothole while his sisters bottomed out in it. As unpleasant as it was, it's kind of nice now that the kids getting sick is just miserable for a change and not catastrophic. Or at least, in Obi's case, serious, but still pretty run-of-the-mill and manageable. Obi went to the pediatrician today to follow up after her ER visit, got another steroid dose and another breathing treatment, and is resting and taking it easy. Like sick kiddos do.

Phin On the Daily 
One day that Phin was really looking forward to was his kindergarten class's celebration of 100 days of school. Students in the lower grades get to dress up like they're 100 years old. For those who haven't been in grade school for a while, it's why you may have noticed tons of photos of your friends' kids cosplaying as senior citizens peppering your social media feeds each January.

(Also for those who haven't been in grade school for a while, I've got news for you about the number of oceans there are.) 

Anyway, even though Phin only got to be present for about 55 of those first 100 days (he wasn't cleared to return to school until early October), he still got in on the action. As you can see, his old man game is strong. 

Behold the dream of my heart–of most parents' hearts, I think...that we would get to see them transformed into a silly old person version of the child we knew, worn and bent by the weight of all the time we fought to give them, but somehow, underneath the frumpy clothes and wrinkles, still the same little kid we remember.