This Kid is Amazing

This picture was taken right after Charlie kicked off his fourth Maintenance cycle. For a refresher, Maintenance is 12 cycles long, each cycle being 3 months (really 12 weeks) long. The first day of the cycle Charlie is put under and has lumbar puncture for spinal fluid withdrawal and methotrexate injection. The rest of the cycle consists of monthly Vincristine injections, weekly pills and daily pills.

So yesterday morning Charlie had his puncture and chemo, but you wouldn’t know it by his actions. He spent the rest of the day shopping for Daniel’s birthday presents and playing superheroes with Mom. The kid keeps trudging on with such persistence that it has become a challenge for us. We’ve come to expect that he’ll be able to do whatever we throw at him, but there are sometimes when he just shuts down. We have to take a step back at those times and remember “Oh yeah, he has cancer. He’s pumped full of drugs all the time and probably doesn’t feel the best.” I’ve got to think that he probably doesn’t feel good 90% of the time, but he is almost always in a good mood. He has his bad days when all he wants to do is sit and watch movies, but for the most part he participates in every activity that any other kid does. That is why this kid is amazing and that is why he’ll always be a superhero to me.