Phin Phans: Phin's Phinal Month of Being Phive

Hey there, Phin phans! Dustin here with a quick update on Phin for the month of May. Let's get it.

Peepop and Phin on Mother's Day.

Longtime phollowers of this blog will recall that Phin and his grandfather, "Peepop," Neesha's father, have a very special bond. They also have a lot in common. They were both born on June 1st. A year ago, they were both undergoing treatment for cancer (Phin for acute myeloid leukemia, Peepop for multiple myeloma).

This year, they're both in remission.

Phin's remission is holding, but at only 10 months off treatment, he's got a long way to go before any of us can breathe easily. Peepop's remission is contingent on an ongoing regimen of maintenance chemotherapy.

But from the moment Neesha's father was diagnosed in June 2021, through Phin's diagnosis in March 2022, and beyond, we have prayed for essentially just one thing:

Time.

I sometimes wonder if "Please let us have more time" might somehow be involved in every prayer, but I confess that this is not my lane. Nonetheless, for both Phin and his grandfather, on our knees, we asked for more time.

We received more time.

Tomorrow, our two birthday boys plan to go out to eat at their favorite Indian restaurant (Himalayan Curry Kitchen in Richmond Hill – try the Vindaloo!) with the rest of the family. There, they will both probably get their faces melted off by spicy sauces and laugh, and later we will sing to them as they blow out candles and make wishes and make the absolute most of their time together. Between covid and cancer, this will be the first birthday they have spent together since Phin turned two.

Medical Updates
Phin had his regular bimonthly clinic visit on May 30 – "bimonthly" as in every two months, not "bimonthly" as in twice a month ... I feel like we deserve more than just one word for both meanings, right? Do better, English language.

Anyway, he went to the clinic appointment that he goes to every 60 days, and the counts from his blood work at that appointment were fantastic. Phin was right in the normal range for white blood cells, red blood cells, hemoglobin, platelets – everything except neutrophils, which have been a little low consistently. Even those were higher this time, though. According to these labs, Phin's blood looks great.

Phin rolls up to the clinic with birthday
cupcakes for his hospital pham.

And what a relief! A couple weeks back, Phin had a sudden loss of appetite that lasted a few days, followed by a parade of other symptoms like fatigue, nausea, and diarrhea – red alert status in this household. That's the drawback of longer stretches between Phin's blood draws. When Phin was in-patient for those five months in spring and summer '22, we got daily lab reports on what was happening with his counts because they drew blood from his CVC every morning. Now, we have to navigate using other stars. So when we notice any changes in his appearance or behavior – especially symptoms that in any way resemble the ones we remember him having just before he got diagnosed with leukemia – our fingers start twitching toward the panic button.

Imagine our joy when Phin's eldest sister started blasting out of both ends a few days later. O! how our hearts sang as what turned out to be a regular old garden-variety norovirus laid each of us low in turn and the walls of our home echoed with a symphony of splatter sounds of ballistic vomiting and involuntary low-viscosity defecation. And while it's true at around 3 a.m. on my second night of trembling on the bathroom floor I developed a detached indifference toward my own survival, I still found comfort in the recognition that, for Phin, this was only a stomach bug, nothing more.

Phin On the Daily
I think I've painted enough images with words for one post. Here are some photos to tell the story of what Phin got up to in May.

Phin could hardly wait for the pool to open
for the season. Last year, his CVC line and
vulnerability to infection prevented him from
entering the water. He's making up for that now.