Halloween and All That's Scary

Halloween has come and gone, and they really go all out for the kids here at the hospital. Benjamin was given a costume (Sally Carerra, the Porsche from the movie "Cars"), which he just sits in. On the office floors, they were giving out candy to the kids. In the cafeteria there was a magician and a dance party. Here there was also face painting, pumpkin decorating and intercom bingo. Unfortunately Benjamin missed all the fun because he decided to celebrate Halloween by developing a fever and being miserable all day. But my mom won at bingo a couple of times, and Benjamin had toys delivered to him anyways. Luckily I took pictures of him in his costume the day we got it, instead of waiting until yesterday.

This fever is following the same pattern as what happened after the third course of chemo: as Benjamin's numbers bottom out, the fever hits and he has a couple of bad days and a few transfusions before things start to get better again. That's what's happening now. Today he had transfusions of both blood and platelets - more beads for his necklace.

I am currently embroiled in the Kitchen War. You might have read in earlier posts how I feel about how people are treating the communal parents' kitchen. Well, Monday night I went to make my pre-bedtime cup of hot chocolate using the brand-spanking new electric kettle. By habit (and thankfully) I always dump the water and refill before boiling. This time the water poured out brown and smelly. It seems that someone brewed their tea directly in the kettle. Three boiled kettle-fulls of water later I was finally able to enjoy my drink, but not before I taped another note on the use of an electric kettle. That same night, a whole pizza and two containers of food were left I suppose to rot. The next morning, with the food still there, I filed a complaint with the head nurse, who had a memo circulated to the effect that if the kitchen could not be kept clean, then for the health of the children in the ward it would have to be locked. I am to report tomorrow to the head nurse if there is no improvement. It is completely beyond me that in a ward where the slightest risk of infection is countered by extreme measures of sanitization by both staff and parents, people can leave food and dirty dishes lying around in a shared area without a second thought. We'll see what happens.

Right now, a sick and restless son makes for an exhausted and sleep-deprived mother. I'm going to try to catch some sleep while Benjamin is sleeping too.