Pill or Shot, oh the horror

Taking the oral medicine, mainly methotrexate and mercaptipurin, was a real struggle. We could wrestling with him for an hour to take some pills, dress it up with a little apple sauce or dress it down with some yogurt, it was just plain horrible. At one point we had to get trained and give him cytaribine shots at home, which was twice as horrible and stressful on the whole family. Matties first PICC line was removed after about 5 months and a Port cathetor, which looks like an over sized life saver candy with a spongy center, was placed under his skin right above his heart. That made blood draws a bit easier but usually it required a parent, the hematologist, and a nurse to draw blood. It could take 30 minutes sometimes. During this January he spent 2 weeks in the hospital and was feverish and neutropenic. A very bad combination and can be just as deadly as the leukemia itself. He was neutropenic quite often and back in the hospital for 2 weeks in February with fevers and it was the second time during our journey I thought we might loose the battle, but once again his guardian angel was there and he pulled through...