a good day

Today we stayed fairly busy at the hospital. Ethan's counts were a little higher today and are starting to climb in the right direction. Again, he needs to get to 500 to no longer be neutropenic, but at least we are heading in the right direction. They also started Ethan on some blood pressure medication today as his blood pressure has been hovering on the slightly higher end of what they would like to see. Hypertension is a very common side effect when taking steroids, and will hopefully go away once he is no longer taking them. For now, we are hoping that the blood pressure medicine will help to keep his blood pressure in the normal range. Yesterday he received a blood transfusion because his hemoglobin was low, but today things looked a lot better there too, so that's good. *And yes, it is a little strange to just put a short sentence in here about a blood transfusion but it really is par for the course with this chemo stuff so we are (sort of) getting used to it.*

We kind of bounce between tired and resting/watching a show, to getting a little stir crazy and taking a walk to the playroom or the Ronald McDonald room (aka "Donald's House" according to Ethan). Today we did some of that and then also got to do some fun activities that they had for patients on the 9th floor.

Here he is waiting very handsomely and patiently for our activity time to begin.

We got to have an experiment and make some quicksand!

And then, Ethan's favorite - we decorated cupcakes! Here is one he made for Daddy. Note the impressive mound of red sprinkles. :)

Please continue to pray for Ethan's counts to recover. Once that happens and he stays fever free we should be able to go home. We are told that sometimes kids can be at 0 for a while and all of sudden spike back toward normal range, and other times kids make a slow climb back up to 500. There is really no way to predict how or when this will happen for Ethan, but of course we hope sooner rather than later. Thank you for praying!