First word and worrying symptoms

Yesterday Little T seemed quite recovered from his illness. He said his first word. He said "bye" clearly and distinctly as his sister left the car for preschool. He has uttered no other intelligible words since unless you count 'gah' and 'yeah yeah yeah yeah'. At this age, Special K loved to repeat words over and over again. She made sure everyone knew she was talking.

I think Little T might have said 'mama' and 'dada' on several different occasions, but I'm not really sure. He combines it with other noises and says it once. He has a speech evaluation on Saturday. I'm not sure what the speech therapist will make of him.

Today we woke up to find that Little T's left upper shoulder was covered in huge bruises and petechiace. We tried to remain calm, but this has heralded trips to the ER leading to one diagnosis of a relapse of his tumor and several false alarms. I lean towards the latter. We call the Hematology nurse practioner. She's very nice to me. She said "We're keen observers." We decide that the stomach flu combined with the antibiotics has probably lowered his platelets sufficiently to cause the symptoms. We watch and wait. We'll see if the bruising gets worse. So far so good. We'll take him in on Friday. He was scheduled to go see Hematology on Tuesday anyway.

I go to my previously scheduled neurologist appointment. I get the flu shot. I call Special K's doctor to arrange for her to get the flu shot. I tell C to get the flu shot. Little T can't get the flu shot until December. He can't get any shots until six months after his last chemo. Until then, his immune system won't produce enough antibodies to make the shot worthwhile.

I thought Little T was at the point where he could just get sick and we wouldn't have to call doctors, but clearly I was just wrong. And I really should stop saying things like 'it's nice to have a normal illness." It just tempts fate. And he's just not normal. I'm not normal either, though my disability is far less serious. And the expectation of normality hurts.

So please send Little T lots of platelets and tumor shrinking vibes his way.