Back at Ronald Mc Donald House!

Yep. We're back. We probably shouldn't be, but we are. Noah seems to be coughing quite a bit all of a sudden. When Tom and the girls left here on Monday morning, Noah went right back to bed and slept for an hour and a half until the guy in the adjoining room started singing (rapping?) along to some song with very objectionable language and I thought, "We have to get out of here!" So we went to the hospital yesterday and the Dr. approved Noah's return to RMH but he woke up coughing more this morning and so he basically had to spend most of the day in our room, so as not to make anyone else sick (actually more to assuage my guilty feelings, lol) . He doesn't cough that much, just more than the director would like. I feel terrible every time I hear him, but the dr. did say we could come back.... (can you tell I feel guilty? ) They did a couple of tests on him and he was negative for bacteria and also for H1N1, Influenza A and a few of the more serious common viruses. Maybe I should give him some cough medicine or something but I'll have to find some that doesn't have Tylenol in it because now that his fever is down, I can't give it to him anymore.

I suppose I should back up and tell you how our Easter Weekend went: too fast and not enough time together. Noah was very sick- he had a high fever all weekend (up to 40.3 at one point) which the oncologist attributed to ARA-C, the chemo drug he was given over the weekend. He spent the better part of Friday and Saturday in the hospital and Sunday morning, too. Tom spent all that time with Noah at the Hospital and I did a few fun things with the girls. We went to Vancouver First CRC on Sunday where we enjoyed a simply beautiful service with an amazing choir, cellists and trumpets all singing Hallelujah! over and over! It was so good to be there pondering the empty tomb and a future with no more crying or sickness or disease or death ... I cried for most of the service. Bawled my head off.
After church we received permission for Noah to be at RMH for Easter dinner, so we came back here for the afternoon. It was so nice for us to be back here together.
Easter dinner was prepared for us by a family whose 7 yr old daughter won a pageant and chose RMH as one of the charities she will support during the time she holds her title. It was a bit weird. She is very cute and very nice, but she arrived dressed up in a big tiara and a sash and with a lot of makeup on. Her sister told us that every appearance she makes at places like RMH and when she does things like this during this year, she gains points toward a scholarship. Alyson and Miranda were quite taken with her tiara and they asked me later, "Is she a real princess?" They were so confused by the answer that "no, she isn't a princess, she won a beauty pageant" ... "a kid won a beauty contest????" and "Is that why they were taking so many pictures of us?" The whole thing was a bit weird, as I said. However, the girl was very nice and our girls really liked her a lot, and most importantly, the dinner was quite delicious!
The best part of the evening was when Greg and Lisa de Vries showed up! They arrived just in time to join us for dinner. We haven't seen them much since they left Smithers, but it was such an awesome visit. We talked and laughed for hours! I didn't realize how much I missed them....
A strange thing happened when Noah and I were at Safeway the other day; I was trying to find something, anything he would eat when who should walk around the corner but Janna Van Driel! The whole van Driel family was there! At our Safeway! It was so cool to see them, too. A very nice surprise....

Getting back to today, when Noah woke up, his temperature was only 38.2, so I didn't give him anything and by the afternoon he was down to 37.6. Yay! However, he has been feeling very nauseous and has vomited a few times in the last couple of days which feels terrible, of course. I feel really bad for him; thankfully he doesn't have to have ARA-C again until we come back ion the middle of May. That fever really took a toll on him, too; he had two naps yesterday for over 3.5 hours in total, he slept in today, and fell asleep early tonight. I hope that all this sleeping helps him get over this cough... please pray that he will stop coughing soon (so we can stay here without feeling guilty, lol...), and so we can enjoy the next few days with my mom who is coming tomorrow! We are very excited about that; in fact, that was the first thing (and one of the only things) Noah smiled about today. It will be nice to show her RMH and the hospital and the places we have been enjoying here in Vancouver.
On Thursday the premier is coming here to meet the people in the house and make an announcement about a new RMH they are building on the hospital grounds. So we may be on TV on Thursday night! Watch for us....