Port-au-Prince

Today was a real doozy, folks.  We were in the hospital from 8 am to 5:30 pm.  And here's what our poor son was able to eat during that time.

1 red popsicle

2 graham crackers

1 cup of apple juice

Even worse, the ingestion of this meager feast occurred between 5-5:30 pm in the recovery room following Fionn's port surgery.  Before that, he was in complete deprivation mode, people.  No food, no water...no fun.  For anyone.  Listening to your son wail, "I'm just so huuuuuuunnnngry!!" for nearly 12 hours is really not my idea of a rocking Monday.  Fionn was also really scared of the surgery, so we ran interference on that a lot too.  "It's gonna hurt!  I don't want this surgery!" No matter how much we told Fionn that he would be asleep during the procedure and wouldn't feel them taking out the PICC line, he was not buying it.  "I will not be asleep!  It gonna huuuuuuurt me!"

It was especially hard because our surgical time of 1:30 (which was already beyond terrible) came and went with no surgery.  We waited and waited and waited.  First, they were cleaning the room.  Then we were waiting to get one more question answered by our oncologist before the surgeon could begin placing the port.  Then we were just...waiting some more for no apparent reason.

Is this picture a little less sad if you know that Fionn was crying, "I want pizza and tacos!"?

Finally, at around 3:30 pm, it was time.  They wheeled Fionn down the hall.  We walked beside the hospital bed, assuming we would continue with him into the operating room as we had done on previous surgery days.  In the past, we had been able to stay with him until he was sedated so that our faces were the last thing he saw before he lost consciousness.  

Not this time.

Once we got in front of the operating room, the doctors told us to say goodbye and go wait in the waiting room.  We were stunned, but there wasn't much time to react.  So we did what we were told.  We gave Fionn kisses and stepped away from the hospital bed.  The bed kept on rolling down the hall.  Fionny twisted his little body around and looked panicked.  He reached for us.  He started wailing.  And then he just disappeared into the swinging doors of the operating room.  We could still hear his muffled cries as he got further and further away.

That was not awesome.

But all's well that ends well.  Fionny's surgery was a success.  The PICC line is no more, and he is now the proud recipient of a port-a-catheter.

He was also the proud recipient of a cherry popsicle.

Other good news.  We received the official MRD (Minimal Residual Disease) number from our doctor today.   Our oncologist was grinning from ear to ear as she said, "It's negative!" Or, as the official pathology report officially states, "The flow cytometric findings reveal no evidence of abnormal T lymphoblasts."

They had us at negative.  They had us at negative.

In closing, thanks for your kind thoughts and prayers today, folks.  It meant so much to us.  We will update again soon.  Fionn has another big day tomorrow because we have to return to the hospital for a 6-hour infusion.  They weren't able to do the infusion today as planned because of the late surgery time.  So we get to go back again tomorrow.  Yaaaaaaay!