Luke had a much better day today!  Grandma Call was with him last night again (what an amazing Grandma, right?), and she said he slept very well.  It may have something to do with the fact that we upped his pain meds again.  The doctors have told us that one of the more common side effects of some of the chemo Luke has been receiving are mouth sores.  We noticed over the last two days that he has grown increasingly more uncomfortable.  And yesterday we noticed a white ring starting to show on the inside of his lips.  Turns out, we're at the beginning stage of these mouth sores, and our little guy is about to be very uncomfortable until the end of this induction phase and until his white blood counts come back up.  Poor baby.  But he seems to be much more comfortable now, and is even nursing and taking his bottles pretty well again.  So, for the time being, we're at a good place!

A day or so after Luke was admitted, he had surgery to put in a central line.  These come in a couple different forms; some are called ports and some are broviac lines.  Luke had a broviac line placed in his chest in order to administer his chemo, IV fluids, and to take his labs with the least amount of discomfort to Luke.  It's kind of like a permanent IV.  His surgery went well, and for the first week it seemed to be healing very well.  But for the last week or so, it is bleeding just enough to cause a potential problem.  It's incredibly important for his broviac to not get infected, so ideally we should only be changing the bandage every week.  However, there is a risk of infection to let any amount of blood just sit at the entry point.  We also increase the risk of infection by frequently changing the bandage, which we're doing at least every other day at this point.  You see our conundrum. :)  On Monday, it looks like our boy will be having a little test done that will allow them to see if there is a hole in the line or if it's not placed where they want it to be.  I sure hope that neither are the case, since it would probably mean another surgery.  But I suppose we'll have to wait and see.

For now, I'm going to enjoy tomorrow with my happy boy before we up the chemo on Monday again.  And hopefully I can get a good night's rest tonight knowing that Luke and Danny (who is at the hospital tonight) should rest well.  I can't believe we've been doing this for three weeks.  I can't believe it's only been three weeks, and yet we still have years to go!  Oi...