Finn the Burrito

These past few days at home have been lovely and exhausting.  After two weeks of being in the hospital, Finn is suffering from some pretty significant separation anxiety and doesn't want me to put him down at all.  My parents were here until this morning, but they weren't really much help, since Finn only wants me to hold him.  So my house is a mess, I have laundry that needs to be done, and did I mention my house is a mess?  Finn is mostly happy (when he’s being held), but he’s had a few horrifying sleep terrors that break my heart.  I know he isn’t awake, but he screams like he did after getting his IV put in last week, and it’s almost impossible to comfort him.  When he’s awake I’m trying to make him feel secure and loved as much as possible, and I really hope that’s enough to get him over this.

Remember how I was so worried about getting a nanny?  I am now so thankful I went the nanny route instead of going with daycare.  M has been such a huge and enormous help.  She stayed with us while Finn was waiting for surgery and kept him fairly happy when he was hungry, while I walked the floors with my doula (all that time with laboring women has made her really good with moms under stress - I'm so glad she offered to come and spend time with me).  M came up to the hospital every day, picked things up from the house when I needed them, fed the cats, and basically made sure I could focus on being there with Finn or could get away for fresh air when I needed a break.  Finn is happy with her, too, so I’m not overly worried about how he’s going to do when I go back to work tomorrow.

It’ll probably be the end of the week before we get the pathology results from the reference lab.  In the meantime, it really does appear that this tumor is the only one – his bone scan was negative on Thursday.  We ended up being able to do it without anesthesia; the tech wrapped him up like a burrito and put him in the scanner and got great pictures.  I know Finn was scared at first, but after the first few minutes I was able to rub his head, and I talked to him the whole time, and he actually fell asleep towards the end.  I would have been happier if he didn’t have to have it, but at least we were able to do it without exposing him to general anesthesia for the fifth time in two weeks.

The prognosis is still very good, but I’m still living in a constant state of fear.  I’m so thankful for all the prayers, words of comfort, research study information and prayer requests on blogs (and elsewhere) that you all have given me and Finn.