Sweet Cheeks, Jam Sandwiches, and 3 AM

My nights at home have been restless and full of hospital dreams. I force myself to awake from the nightmares only to realize my living horror is still true:  Jace has cancer. It's still hard to believe.  I think Jace must also be having bad dreams, since he awakes about every four hours.  Matt has been taking the night shift since he's away from Jace during the days, but I talked him into letting me get up this time, since I wasn't asleep anyway.

Jace is so precious in the early hours of the morning. An hour ago, when he came into our room, he said, "My tummy is growling." We were advised by the nurses and doctors he would be ravenous, and despite his sick stomach, he is very hungry.  The food of choice yesterday was mostly fishsticks, in addition to macoroni and cheese, spaghetti noodles, steamed vegatables, crackers and cheese, popcorn, string cheese, chicken noodle soup, and jam and bread sandwiches. It took looking at the picture from my last post for me to realize Jace's cheeks are growing.  He's on a high dose of steroids, so it makes sense. The doctor said he's had patients gain from 0-20 lbs. in the first month.  We are blessed Jace doesn't care about gaining weight, and I'm practicing my "you look tough" talk.

We've had good days at home. Jace has been running low-grade fevers, but they haven't reached the point where we are suppose to call the hospital. He is obviously ill, but he tries very hard to be pleasant. Mostly he rests on the couch, and I try to entertain him with books, Wii Fit (he likes to laugh at me doing the hula hoop game), computer games, and movies.  Wednesday he was frustrated about the situation of being indoors...not going to school...not feeling like going outside...  so we spent 30 minutes throwing "splat" balls at the wall.  It helped him release a little anger, and made us giggle.  I wish you could hear him laugh.

He just drifted back to sleep, and I couldn't help but stroke his full head of hair and his sweet plump cheeks.  Some of you have been telling me I signed up for this, but I find that hard to believe. I'm so weak. But Jace-- now that I understand.  He was probably first in line saying something like, "Bring it."