A Walk to the Park

The last few days, Matthew legs have been a little weak - another side effect of the steroids, compounded by the rapid weight gain. But he's bored, too. He's tired of being stuck in the house. Since the first day in the hospital, he's been asking us to take him to the park. The thing is, parks are disgusting, germy places. When his blood counts were so low, there was no way in this world we would have considered that.

Well, last Thursday at his appointment, the doctor told us his counts are up. That doesn't mean he's out of the woods, by any stretch of the imagination, but it's still a good thing. To counteract the high blood counts, however, the steroids weaken the immune system's functionality. So, while it's safe enough to take him out to places like that, he still shouldn't be in big crowds or anything. But the doctor specifically said that we shouldn't stop living our lives. We should let Matthew play and be a kid.

So yesterday, in the middle of the day, when I felt pretty confident that our neighborhood park would be empty, or sparsely populated, I decided to take him. He has this motorized bike that we gave him for Christmas. It honestly reminds me of a Jazzy - those wheelchair/bike things for seniors - only it's his size.

This doesn't show how Jazzy-like it is, but you can see, it would definitely be easier for him to ride this to the park than to walk.

Originally, I intended to put the bike into the car, and drive us to the park, and then let him ride the bike at the park. But they resurfaced our road yesterday, and we couldn't drive on it until the road blocks came down.

So we walked to the park. No big deal, right? It's maybe 4 blocks away, and he had his little bike to ride on if he got too tired.

In the driveway, I cleaned off the bike with like 15 Clorox wipes, and then let him sit on it. He pushed the gas pedal, and it surged forward, and freaked him out. He was NOT going to get on it. He said he'd ride it when we get to the park. So, I dragged it next to me as we walked. I would say I rolled it next to me, except that of the three wheels, only two roll freely. The other only goes if you're pressingo the gas pedal, or putting weight on it, and pushing hard - and then it sounds squealy and loud.

So, I dragged the bike next to me as we walked, and Matthew walked the whole way.

When we got there, he climbed up the stairs, crawled through the big tube, climbed more stairs, and slid down the slide. Then he dug in the sand for 30 seconds, and declared that he was ready to go home. He still refused to sit on his bike, so I dragged it beside me as we walked home, too.

By the time we got home, he was moving very slow, but he never once asked me to hold him or help him. He is one seriously tough kid!

Even though he didn't want to play at the park for long, he did have a good time. He wants to go for another walk today.