Being in-patient, scheduled or otherwise, can really suck. It sucks for the patient, the caregivers, and is especially brutal during those extended hospital stays. When our 3-year-old was diagnosed with childhood leukemia, we were told that during the first month she’d likely be inpatient – a lot – depending on how she handled the volumes of chemo pumped into her little body. Then, later in treatment, there would be six scheduled hospital stays, lasting anywhere from three days to a week, again depending how she metabolized the chemo. Oh, and that’s just the schedule for when she’s healthy – add more hospital stays like this for fever, super low ANC, or chicken pox (us). As you well know, these kinds of hospital stays are pretty standard cancer-fare.

(Originally published in September 2021 for Elephants and Tea Magazine)