Hair in the Bathtub

The other night, I was giving the kids a bath, and when it was time to wash Alex's hair he said:

"Mom...I don't have to wash my hair, because...I don't have any!"

I laughed and said - "Well, then your head is dirty - we'll just wash that!"

After bath time was over, and the kids were dry and in their PJ's, I walked back into the bathroom, and noticed the hair floating in the bathtub water as it circled the drain. It hit me so hard that Alex has cancer, and that the reason his hair is falling out is because of the poison that he keeps ingesting, and that we keep injecting into his body.

I really thought: "Once it hits me that Alex has cancer, I'll deal with it, and get used to the idea". Guess what? You don't get hit just "once". You get pummeled with the realization that your child was days away from death over, and Over, and OVER again. It hits you at the most inopportune times - like draining the bathtub.

This week has been a nice break from the pills and potions of cancer treatment. Alex's sweet, funny and willful personality has returned full force. Tomorrow we have the start of round two of Delayed Intensification. He will be getting new drugs he has never gotten before, along with some of the more familiar poisons.

He is less than 40 days away from "Maintenance" which is the final phase of treatment. Maintenance is medications of one kind or another every day for 18 months, with the cycle repeating every 85 days. He'll only need to visit the clinic once a month during Maintenance - I can't wait to get to that point. It's a huge milestone in the life of a cancer patient. The next big milestone after that will be when his PORT is removed - sometime around January of 2011.