Happy Birthday Jacob!

Jacob turned 6 years old today!

It began in the Emergency Room at Primary Children's hospital last night. The whites of Jacob's eyes started going yellow earlier this week, so Sara called the oncology clinic (using our top-secret redphone direct-line access to nurses) and asked them about his eyes. They told her that this was abnormal and that we ought to come to the emergency room to have him looked at pronto. Probably something going on with his liver.

So we packed up.

Arriving at PCMC at 5:00 pm, we were placed in an ER room where we waited to be seen. We talked to one another. We fidgeted. We played Angry Birds on mommy's phone. We waited. It was well nigh an hour before anything really "medical" was done. Little did we know that we were going to have a lot of practice waiting for the next 15 hours. Lots of practice. Is this why when we come to the hospital we are called "patients"? Is that some effort to subliminally condition us to be good, uncomplaining "waiters"? And shouldn't that be spelled "patience"? Or maybe it should be "patiences" or perhaps "patiencees," or something. Anyway...

After about an hour they came in and drew blood from his port ... and then we waited for another hour. They then came back in and told us that one of the labs for his bloodwork didn't work and that they would need to draw some more blood. So they did ... and so we waited ... for more than another hour. Meanwhile, Jacob was starving for food and the nurses were saying that he couldn't eat anything until the lab results came back--just in case they needed to do something else "medically important" (kind of vague as to what). So we waiting some more and had a brief little devotional from the Book of Mormon and then watched "How to Train Your Dragon" and then watched "Bolt" and then played Angry Birds some more. All the while the angst of waiting and the discomfort of hunger were building to an emotional eruption.

Thankfully, Jacob's uncle Spencer and aunt Olivia came to visit, bringing with them the largest basket of snacks I've ever seen in my life. But, of course, he couldn't eat it :( Oh, the ironies of life!

As the clock struck 12:00 am and it was officially Jacob's birthday, the first words out of his mouth as a 6 year old, I believe, were "I WANT A TACO!!!" said at full scream. Yup, that is how his sixth year of earth-life began--in a hospital emergency room, bone-tired, and taco-less. In desperation I dashed to the cafeteria and back with some potato logs and fry sauce trying to get something in his belly before he had to officially begin his midnight fast (in preparation for anesthesia in the morning), which had apparently already begun at like 8:00 pm. He ate a little and cried a lot, and then somewhere in there I fell asleep on the floor.

Needless to say, after a lot of waiting, and blood work, and an ultrasound, and then more waiting for results, we were finally officially admitted to the hospital at about 3:00 am and given a room on the 4th floor. Then, after taking a small nap, receiving a lumbar puncture, having some chemo shot up his spinal column, and getting some bone marrow extracted from his hip, Jacob ate a little lunch and nestled down for a much needed nap in a hospital chair. Poor guy.

On our way home Jacob wanted to eat some PF Chang's for his birthday, so we did, and once we arrived home around 10:00 pm he opened his Star Wars legos we got for him. Because he "wasn't tired" we let him start putting his legos together with the understanding that I would not be able to help him as I would not be a very good daddy if I didn't get some good sleep. He agreed and began to build. I awoke at 2:30 am this morning (!) and informed him that it was probably time to go to bed. That's right, he had been building his Star Wars legos all by himself for 4 hours non-stop! And thus ended the day that Jacob turned six.