this week was ok....

...surprisingly.  Noah was on Dexamethasone, so he was pretty emotional.  There were a few times where he would leave the room and when I found him upstairs he was crying.  I asked him what was wrong and he just cried and said, " I don't knoooowwww!" : (
That was hard.

One of the the redeeming things that happened was that he is eating. A lot.  Yesterday he even ate french fries.  That is seriously a big deal.  He has never eaten an entire order of french fries in his life.  He hates french fries. But when you're hungry, you'll almost try anything, right?  I was impressed.  He has gained 2.5 kg, or about 5 lbs this week, so that is very good.  He even got up at midnight the other day and made himself a sandwich!  This is behavior I have never seen from him - it is so weird..... Everything is about food. We are planning to go to the Star Wars movie this afternoon and the first thing he asked was, "Can we get popcorn there? A big bag?" lol....

The other big thing is that a friend was very generous. There is another family (the Mohans) at RMH with a son close to Noah's age and they have become good friends.  They decided to buy their son a RC car and thought it would be even more fun if they bought one for Noah too.  It is the coolest thing ever - it can go 35 MPH and do donuts and climb over roots and curbs and take jumps, etc.  It has been so much fun! He was a bit worried that he would break it, but even when he did, it was ok.  Apparently these things are made to be rebuilt and customized and broken and fixed, so the parts are quite easy to find.  Thank you to my Uncle Ken who fixed it.  It has definitely made Noah's week.  Everyday he looks forward to driving it.  The first thing he does every morning is take it out and look at it.  He is so cute.

We had a wonderful visit with my good friend Elaine yesterday.  It is so nice to get visitors from home... sigh.  Especially when they bring Valentine's day gifts from my husband.  : )  I got a beautiful ring.  Then I got called a chump for opening it before Valentine's day, lol!  Thanks anyway honey, it was worth it!

So, it looks like Noah might make it onto the jumbotron again - the BC Children's Hospital Foundation just called and asked if Noah wants to be in a Public Service Announcement with Daniel and Henrik Sedin for Canucks for Kids.   They are going to shoot it tomorrow night here at the hospital.  Cool, eh? I will let you all know when it is up on the website.  I suppose it might even be on TV.  He is so funny- he doesn't want to jeopardize his reputation as a staunch Oiler fan, but he can't very well wear his Oiler hat on a Canucks for Kids ad, so he would like me to remind everyone that it is Canucks for Kids, NOT Kids for Canucks, and while he is very happy about how amazingly generous the Canucks have been, they are not his favourite team. We were joking with a friend who is also an Oiler fan this afternoon about this, and Stephan had a good idea: it could be a fundraising gimmick - how much will it take for Noah to take his Oiler hat off? If people donated a certain amount of money would he be willing to wear the Canucks hat? He says he cannot be bought.  But wouldn't that be fun?

Another good thing is that the Dexamethasone, while making him sad, did a good thing - it made his counts go up significantly!  Normally, when he goes for blood work, they are looking for his white cell count and his neutrophils (the infection fighting cells) to be at 0.75 or higher. Well, he started with pretty high counts (3.2 or something) because we had been home for 16 days with no chemo, but on Friday I was totally taken aback when the Dr. handed me his counts - his WBC was 13.2 and it is mostly neutrophils, they were 12.4 or something crazy like that!  He has taken to calling himself Immuno-Man!  He has more immunity than any normal human.  Funny.  The counts will go down as the Doxorubicin he gets on Fridays starts to win out over the Dex.  But it has been good; we went skating on Saturday with my Uncle and some friends and when Noah was thirsty, I pointed him to the water fountain, which is usually off limits for him and said, You're Immuno-Man, aren't you? You can get a drink there!  It was great!

Well, it is time to go - he is all finished his chemo for the day, and we are going to the movie!  I hope you are all well, and thanks for yours prayers and support... it makes a big difference - God is so good, he has been carrying us through this week and showed us His love through the kindness and generosity of friends.