Changes

It's amazing how fast cancer can change a child.

Matthew's type of cancer is Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. The word Acute refers to how quickly the cancer takes over. It's a fast moving cancer.

Today, I'm reflecting on the rapid changes my poor boy has gone through in the last few months. I have gathered some pictures that really show it all.

If you go back to my first blog entry, you'll find the story of the first month. It all started with the bumps on his cheek and neck.



The ones on the bottom show up more, but up at the top, if you look closely, you'll see the bigger one, by his ear. This was June 12th, at about 1pm.






Later that day, it had grown considerably larger. Also, in front of his ear on his cheek, you can see another bump. That one was much more difficult to get a good image of, for some reason. Believe it or not, it was bigger than the one on his neck. This was at about midnight, the morning of June 13th. (basically the same day.)














By the time we went to the emergency room, he was in a lot of pain. The one on his face started looking bruised. This was at about 2am, still on June 13th.










This is the same day - at the same time as the first picture, when the bumps were still relatively small. See how happy he still is? How pink his skin still looks? How chubby his cheeks are?

This day was a turning point. Before this, I had noticed that Matthew was catching everything he was exposed to way too easily, but I still considered him a completely healthy kid. I thought he was getting sick so often because he went to daycare, and kids catch more stuff at daycare.










This is a picture of him sleeping a couple of days before we went to the Primary Children's emergency room.

See how pale he is? How thin his cheeks and lips look? His skin looks grayish to me. By this time, I was beginning to feel desperate for someone to tell me what was wrong with my child.

Following are a few pictures of Matthew during the first few days after we came home. You can see the blood transfusion did him some real good.

He stacked those cups up higher than his head. See how slim his face is here? How skinny his arms are? You can start to see his belly looking chubby.

The first few days he was home, he kept saying he wanted a Spongbob birthday cake, so Grandma Toni made him one. His whole face lit up. The other kids were gone, so Justin, Toni, and I sang him Happy Birthday. It wasn't really his birthday, but no one cared!

See how pink his cheeks are? See how they're starting to get a little bit chubby again?



Now, here's a picture of him from this morning. He was mad that I made him put on some shorts and refused to smile for the picture. He thinks everything's better without pants.

We've had to go up a T-Shirt size, because his belly is so big from the steroids and constant eating. See how chubby his cheeks are? Also from the steroids. He's retaining a lot of water, and the nurse told me I should avoid giving him foods with sodium, but that's the only thing in the whole wide world he wants. He wants pizza and bread sticks (that's the biggest craving - especially bread sticks with the huge pieces of salt on them), and he wants hot dogs, and chicken nuggets, and chips. I can, however, talk him into eating Cheerios in milk. Oh, and he drinks a TON of milk! He's going through a gallon every 2-3 days.

The steroids also make him very grouchy. That's why I finally gave up on getting a smile for that picture - it was never going to happy unless I let him take off the shorts first. And I didn't particularly want to post a picture of him in his undies online.

I can't wait for the steroids to end! Today is day 14, and he has to take them until day 28.

I do hear from other moms, though, that later I'll be really happy he put on some extra weight now. I guess that means later we'll be going back to trying to convince him to eat again.

What a roller-coaster!

He still has his hair, though!