Where Joel's At

 This is where Joel goes for chemo during the week.

Yesterday was his first day off since getting here over 2 weeks ago.

He has had chemo or radiation or both everyday in the past 2 weeks.

Radiation is finished now!

 I finally got a picture of Joel with his Oncologist.

 On weekends when Joel gets chemo, he has to go in the main entrance, be admitted, and then head up to 3B 

 It was extremely busy last weekend and he had to wait in the playroom for a long time.  At this point his counts were all getting very low.  He was very pale but his mood was dark.

He has been extremely tired, the nausea hit this week and he has been getting lots of headaches.

He was escaping into one of my favorite books, "Till We Have Faces" by C. S. Lewis.

 But the nurses here have a way of making him laugh and that seems to make all the difference.

 It made his day when the music store at Granville Island was finally open.

 On Monday we were given passes to go to the Christmas Light Up at the Capillano Suspension Bridge.

Joel was feeling very rough that day and didn't want to go.

But I gave him a cup of coffee and talked him into trying it out.

He had tonnes of fun.  He did lots of walking which is great for making his blood counts recover.

He got to try the glass blowing booth and made a Christmas ornament.

It was so cool.

 Here he is adding color to his glass.

 Melting the color in the furnace.

 Adding some white.

And then stretching out the glass.

 The bridge made me weak in the knees.

We also did the tree walk which was very cool and the cliff walk.

And we tried on lots of accessories that we could never afford in the gift shop.

 This week at Ronald Macdonald House we decorated for Christmas.

Joey's put on a very yummy family dinner.

Gramma J and Jerry came to visit.

Uncle Stephen and Aunty Lani came to visit.

Aunty Rachel came to visit.

 Santa came to visit.

Here he is asking Joel if he wants hair for Christmas.

Joel was not offended cause underneath Santa's hat, he was bald too.

Today Joel is feeling pretty rough so he is going to stay in bed as long a possible.

I will bring him up a cup of coffee soon, that seems to be the only thing that helps these days.

He goes for more bloodwork this afternoon.

His counts have all dropped and he may need some transfusions.

Tomorrow morning he gets three more doses of chemo.  Methotrexate in the spine, vincristine and Peg-Asparaginase in the port.

On Friday he has another CAT scan to see what the blood clot in his brain is doing.

And then, if all looks good, we will be heading home.

Maintenance is scheduled to start on December 27th, as long as his blood counts have recovered by then.