We're Goin' Through the Bid D, and Don't Mean Dallas...

Anthony's had diarrhea for the past few days (TMI? Too bad!). He has no other symptoms of being sick except for that. We sent him to school yesterday assuming that this was a one-time thing. But last night it was obvious that this was no isolated incident. Mark will stay home with Anthony today, so we'll probably take him in for his labs. He needs them by Monday, and since Monday is a holiday...well, today's as good a day as any, I suppose! We'll see how Anthony's feeling when he wakes up and go from there.

School has been a whirlwind of activity. I have my first test on Friday, and I think I'm pretty well prepared for it. I'm taking 20 hours of course work but am at school, and in class, much more than that. I've really been enjoying my Blood Banking class. I've learned how to do blood typing, cross matching, and everything I will need to accurately type someone for a blood transfusion once in the lab. It's so much more involved than I thought it would be, but our professor is so interesting when he's teaching that it's hard to not get excited about the material!

I remember the long list of requirements Anthony had on his blood bags the few times he's had transfusions...sometimes it's easier than that, and sometimes it's just that complicated. Anthony needed blood (and always will) that not only matched his blood type, but that was completely virus negative (CMV and EBV especially as those are big bad words in the transplant world), it needed to have low counts of immunobodies (it could cause his stunted immune system to jump into overdrive), it needed to be irradiated (just to cover all the bases, you know), and a whole bunch of other things that I don't remember. I thought I had pulled the sticker off of one of the blood bags (when the transfusion was over, of course), so I'll have to find it and bring it to class.

Anthony has been using the potty more and more lately. When his day care first started with the potty training, Anthony would come home with at least four pairs of underwear and shorts that were dirty. Some days now he's coming home with no clothes to be washed (or just one set). He still won't tell anyone that he needs to go potty, but will go if we take him consistently. He really likes my "sticker incentive"...everytime he actually does something on the potty, he gets to pick out a sticker from the arsenal I've amassed. We'll just keep trying, and he'll eventually get it 100%! His teacher at day care feels that she'll have her whole class (about 10 students, I think) potty trained by November. All I can say to that is, "God bless her!" I cannot imagine working with 10 kids on potty training at one time. Of course, that's what she's paid to do, and that's why she has two aides to help her out!

We're all anxious for Nana and Grandpa to get home...they've been gone for almost three weeks! Grandpa had training classes to attend for two weeks in Philadelphia, and Nana went along for the ride. Then they're spending this week on vacation. They come home Saturday, and I don't know who's more anxious to see each other, Anthony or Nana! Anthony told Nana to "Come home soon" the other day, and if there had been an available flight, I think she would have been on it!

Well, that's it for now! I'll post later with labs (if we get them done) and an update on how Anthony's feeling.