Logan – Round 4 complete

Logan and Amanda and AJ were discharged from the hospital on Wednesday evening this past week. Logan’s blood count recovery came quickly, about 7 days sooner than expected. And so Aunt Casey and Uncle Chris are comfortably hosting them in their home. I know that Amanda and AJ and Logan are all grateful to be gone from the hospital for a while.

Discharge Day

Day of discharge was a frustrating day of waiting. Logan’s blood counts began stabilizing and rising last weekend, so it was just a matter of time. His machine-read counts early on Wednesday morning were high enough for the discharge. But then the human-read counts were much lower throwing discharge into question. So the doctor asked to re-draw blood for another count, and wanted to wait until 4pm to allow Logan’s body a bit more time to recover. Complicating all this was a winter storm looming for that evening. Freezing rain, sleet and snow were forecast, sure to make driving on Thursday or Friday impossible. And that turned out to be true. No discharge on Wednesday would have meant a Saturday discharge as the roads were dangerous on Thursday and Friday.

Leaving

Around 6pm on Wednesday the new blood counts confirmed discharge. So began the mad scramble to beat the freezing rain. AJ had already packed everything – which meant that there was precious little to do in the hospital all day except to wait. On the discharge greenlight, grandparents Kim and Mike headed to the hospital to help retrieve them and their belongings. Amanda drove one car with Kim in the back seat accompanying Logan so he did not remove his feeding tube. AJ drove their other car which was packed. And Mike retrieved the large Yeti cooler which has been a constant during the hospital stay (Thank you to Katy and Steve for the loan!)

Recent pictures and video from Facebook have shown a happy and quite active Logan playing at his Aunt and Uncle’s home. So, so great to see. The pic on this post is from this morning’s FaceTime call. Re-admission is next week Wednesday for the home stretch of chemo, Round 5. And they are all ready for the chemo treatments to be completed.

Breaking Quarantine

With this discharge, Donna and I broke our quarantine to allow us to visit with the rest of the family and with friends. I have previously written about how difficult this is. We went into quarantine on December 28, 5 weeks ago. We struggle with the letting go of both visiting with Logan and helping Amanda and AJ. And at the same time we yearn to be with others including our grandson Griffin. There is no good solution to this. This past week, Donna said, “I hate this. It’s like we have to choose between our grandsons.” Fact is, we are choosing, each time. Though it might be called balancing, it feels like failure.

And while it seems that Donna and I are in the middle of Logan’s leukemia treatment, even we as grandparents are on the edge. In the very center of it, every day, are Amanda and AJ. Focused on Logan and his care and keeping him safe, they are doing a wonderful job. And what they do is unseen by most. I can tell you that their teamwork, patience and commitment are extraordinary. Please continue to pray for this little family as they are about to start the last round of this chemotherapy protocol.