Outwitted By A Twelve Year Old

September 1st - 7th

The medical appointments went well this week. Again, Camyyn's blood draw "numbers" are looking great. Because Camryn continues to do well, the docs said a possibility exists that Camryn may not need a marrow biopsy at day 100. I know that Camy would definitely be in favor of that. Those biopsies causes her to be anxious, even though she has had four, and recovery is not easy. A little progress this week in reducing Camryn's rash and itching. The rash appears to be reducing and the itching not as intense as last week. Lee Ann and I suspect that we may have found a possible reason for the flare up of graft vs host disease, which I will now explain. As the readers of this blog are aware, Camryn has had some difficulty being compliant taking her medications. We have had some looooooooong nights, mostly Lee Ann and Morgan, staying up with Camryn to ensure the meds went down. Two things are important to understand here; first, some of her medications MUST be taken exactly 12 hours apart or she could have unbalanced blood levels, too high or too low. Secondly, whoever is helping to "proctor" Camryn's nighttime medicine taking session, can easily be overcome with sleep as the clock approaches midnight or later. Keep in mind that the night sessions begin around 9:00 pm., morning session is at 9:00 am. Why 9:00 pm? Various reasons but primarily to work around Vandy morning medical appointments, to avoid conflicting with other scheduled family activities,  and 12 hours apart from the morning session. So last week, Lee Ann was "on duty", and by herself for the week since I was in N.J. and Morgan was enjoying one last fling at the beach with a friend and her family, before she heads off to school later this week. One of the nights last week was a particularly long session and Camryn was just having trouble (translation: she did not want to take her pills) so Lee Ann went to bed around midnight. In the morning, Lee Ann was checking the chairs around the kitchen table, where we sit for the "pill taking sessions". For whatever reason, Lee Ann lifted up the cushion on the chair where Camryn sits and found some pills that had been hidden by You-Know-Who. When Lee Ann called me to tell me of her "discovery", all I could do was to sit there in silence on the other end of the phone, dumbfounded by being duped for who knows how
long, by the 12 year old little stinker. I really wanted to yell at Camryn, lecturing her on why what she
 was doing could seriously hurt her and her recovery. Then, after a few moments, this smirk of admiration appeared on my face as I tried to think how Camryn pulled off such a stunt while being "proctored". My anger was replaced with, I am embarrassed to actually admit this, pride. I was proud that she could actually pull off such a stunt, a stupid stunt, but very clever. Can you believe that? Even now, typing this blog, the smirk is back. Absolutely shameful on my part. Nevertheless, Camryn DID in fact get lectured and we have doubled the proctoring. The last four days Camry's pill taking sessions have been 5-10 minutes, that's it. Something has finally clicked in her head that swallowing her meds is no big deal, AND she would prefer to have access to her iPod. Children can be clever, but parents can leverage access to certain assets. Payback is fun, for the parents!