Groundhog Day

I can't believe that "Groundhog Day" starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell (where has she gone?) dates back to 1993.  Reason 674 that I feel old.


If you haven't seen the movie, do.  It's quite good  Or it was seventeen years ago.  It's a story about this bitter, cynical weatherman who is sent to cover Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney.  He gets stuck in a time loop and relives the same day over and over again.  I know, but watch it anyway, it's good.


Anyway, that's our metaphor today.  The same day over and over.


It's Wednesday (well it was when I started writing this, now it's Thursday) and so of course we were at BC Children's Hospital.  Another long Wednesday, we left home at 7 and got home about 2:30 - although we've had longer days as you'll hear.


All Alex needed was a quick shot of a chemotherapy drug called Ara-C.  He had this last Wednesday and for each of the next three consecutive days,  a three day break, then back today and we are in tomorrow, Friday and Saturday.  This is the fourth time that we have had four consecutive days of going into the hospital for Ara-C.  And other concoctions.


The chemo takes its toll though and, as in the past, at different points one needs blood transfusions to keep one's haemoglobin level high enough.  (You remember haemoglobin from past posts and biology classes - it is the metallprotein in red blood cells that carries oxygen.  Kinda key.)  In an average adult male, normal haemoglobin is somewhere between 125 to 165 (g/L).  When Alex's blood work came back this morning it was 75 so some blood was in order.  That takes time, maybe an hour to do the cross match and obtain the blood and then three or four hours to infuse the half litre or so that he got.  His blood will be tested again Friday and he may or may not need another transfusion in the next few days.

It's Thursday now and another Ground Hog Day has come and gone. 

Last night I woke Alex up at 11:30 for some pills - anti-nausea drugs and a mild chemotherapy agent called 6 Mercaptopurine, called "6mp" at the hospital. 


I wake him again at 6:20 for anti-nausea drugs.  It's a bit early but we have found having the pills in early before we get in the car works better.  He drifts back to sleep.  Sort of. 


At 7:00 I kick him out of bed - like any teenager,  he doesn't like it (although today he was up and dressed on his own ).  Alex wears his uniform of track pants, a t-shirt and the orange Nike running shoes he bought in London.  I wear my uniform of jeans that cost too much, an untucked dress shirt, dress shoes.


We're in the car at 7:15 or 7:20.  We drive to BC Children's Hospital and get there about 8:00, our scheduled time.  We park in the same spot and I buy a ticket from the same machine and put it on the dash.  Sometimes Alex throws up during the drive or when we arrive.  The last several times though he doesn't, the docs have tweaked the dosage of the anti-nausea pills and we have tweaked the timing.  It works.


We check in at the registration desk.  The lady has a toasted english muffin with peanut butter and jam.  Every day (she's tiny).  I tease her about this a little.  Alex puts on the plastic hospital id bracelet, I write his name and the time on a whiteboard.  We sit and wait. Sometimes for a long time, today everything went very quickly.  I go to the on campus Starbucks and get coffee  that I've been jonesing for since six.  I get Alex a hot chocolate.  Sometimes he drinks it.  We wait some more.


Alex's nurse comes and records his weight, height, blood pressure, heart rate and temperature.  We answer the same questions we did the previous day.  It's not a drag, the nurses are great, we like them - a lot.  But it is Groundhog Day.

Eventually Alex gets the "push" of the Ara-C.  It only takes a few seconds to deliver but a few minutes to prep before hand and then flush and close off  the IV line that remains attached to his chest for the four days.


We head back out to the car and drive home.  Sometimes this is a short time later, sometimes it's a few hours later, but it seems the same somehow.  Time ... bends. 

If he's feeling rough, Alex heads back to bed and I get online, check my voicemail.  If he's feeling okay, Alex is on the couch - watching TV is about all he has the energy for (although he did a big chunk of math and science homework yesterday, very impressive).  He tries to eat and drink, we try to think of something to give him something different and manageable to make it more interesting.  He has more pills in the afternoon, might have a little dinner, might not.    I split my time between trying to do work online, sitting in on a conference call and sitting with Alex.  We talk about different things usually nothing, sometimes  non-stop and sometimes we're quiet for long periods.  I make dumb jokes  Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.


Alex is usually in bed pretty early.


At 11:30 p.m., I wake him up for the pills.  Groundhog Day begins again.


It's hard to describe, but if you watch the movie you'll see how Bill Murray goes from Groundhog Day being so distressing to then accepting it to then embracing it.  

We don't embrace it really. Or at least not yet and I doubt we ever  will.  We don't like it but we no longer dislike it, we just accept it.

It is what it is.


It's Groundhog Day.