Steroids, Regression, and a Daddy's Germaphobia

I was thinking of how to write about these topics all day yesterday...and time just didn't provide an opportunity to actually translate onto paper what was going through my mind.  There is a little more time when Jenny or I sit in the hospital.  Now that we are home, life has to try to return to normal.  Meili has piano and tumbling, Rhyan has tumbling, Ava wants to do artwork and play, and all three of them have school.  Hudson got his shots and has found a whole new form of communication: crying without tears.  Yep, just plain letting his voice be heard that he is upset at the pain in his legs where the shots were ;-)

First things first:  Steroids are a major part of Ainsley's chemo over the next month.  Anyone that has taken or been around someone that takes high doses of steroids (ie severe asthma) can tell you that personalities change a little.  At the hospital we call it "steroid psychosis."  Emotions run a little wild, let me just say, and Ainsley is no exception to that with the steroids she is taking.  We've been trying to find the delicate line between identifying what behavior is attributable to the steroids, what is from the shear amount of change that has taken place in her life, what is normal 4 year old behavior, and what is behavior that needs to be corrected.  Not sure we've figured it out yet.  If we start treating her differently now, then she'll have a whole new level of instability in her life.

Second:  Regression.  We were warned that when a child is ill, they will often regress to a slightly younger stage.  An example is toilet training.  Another is behavior, which blurs the lines above a little more.  We find Ainsley trying to take control of whatever level of her day she can, since much of her past week has had control taken away from her.  She had to stay in a hospital she didn't want to be in, have medicines she didn't want to take, wear a mask she didn't like the smell of, eat food she didn't want to eat, and much more.  Taking medicine, eating, and potty time are her areas to control.  Twice daily medications seem to become an all day affair.  She tries to negotiate, run away from, and generally avoid it, but she does still take it.  Here's a picture of our attempts tonight.  MeiMei was super helpful. 

  Tomorrow morning we return to the hospital for another lumbar puncture and more chemo.  Not sure how she'll feel about having her port accessed, but that will be another topic for another day.

Finally, I'll just go ahead and admit I'm a germophobe.  So with increased emphasis on Ainsley's immune system, I'm learning whole new ways to feel like germs are everywhere.  Meili and Rhyan wanted to make scrambled eggs the other morning, something they are quite good at doing.  Some egg shells got into the mix, so I came into the kitchen to the sight of them dunking their hands into the raw eggs to get the shells.  My germ radar was blaring!!!  I think I kept my cool on the outside, but inside I was certain that the newly sanitized kitchen needed to be resanitized.  Thank heaven for bleach wipes!  The girls made awesome eggs, by the way.  One day I won't look at an egg as the enemy, right?