Friday May 11th 12:30 pm

It has been a few days since our last post because the last few days have been a blur. Tuesday afternoon Liam was doing so well that he was removed from the POU unit and sent back to a regular inpatient room meaning we lost our large comfortable private room, but it was good news since it showed how well Liam was recovering from his marathon surgery. You might wonder how well Liam was doing? Well he was doing well enough to start his 4th round of chemo on Wednesday and to be discharged later in the day. I was really bothered by the whole thing since it was just 5 days after a 10 hour surgery and I just couldn’t imagine how he could tolerate anything more. Today we are 3 days into a 4 day cycle and will complete the treatment sometime Saturday afternoon. Liam was discharged Wednesday evening at around 11:00 pm and has been receiving the balance of the treatment as an outpatient. He has not required any pain medication since Thursday morning and this bewilders me. How could such a small little guy with an incision measuring approximately 7 inches long across his right side not be in any pain? I know I would still be popping percosets every other hour. His spirits are low and this is normal after everything he has gone through. We have tried every trick we know to wrestle smiles from him but they are pretty hard to come by. Dr. Bovine the clown at MSKCC from the Big Apple Circus who is a professional smile wrangler also failed to get Liam to do little more than smirk and only for a second. It makes us feel as if we have really hurt him and it is as if he is just so mad about everything that he is experiencing that he has nothing to say to us or those around him. Every once in awhile he lets his guard down and says something very Liam like but seconds later as if realizing he slipped he clams up again. We have worried for over a week now about Liam’s Birthday this coming Sunday (Mothers Day). We wondered if we would be in the hospital. We worried about the timing of the chemo treatment and what kind of Birthday he would have if he was hooked up to a chemo pump. I am relieved to say that we will have completed the chemo round just 1 day prior to the big day and we have every intention of going to our home in NJ to spend the day any way Liam chooses. He may just opt to spend most of the day being held or carried around the yard but it will be outside of the hospital and for this we are most thankful. Liam will turn 3 years old this Sunday.