In a pickle

 

When Ari's counts drop, so does his appetite. We see this at home every 3 week cycle. Week 1 he eats a tremendous amount of 1 specific food. Week 2 he eats like "normal" (veggies, fruit, pasta, protein, etc). And week 3 he stops eating. We used to be concerned but now we know the drill. He gains weight. He loses weight. Repeat.

With his counts at around zero (technically, his ANC is a whopping 50), he's not so interested in grub (and particularly what they offer through hospital room service).  The last two days, he not-so-calmly requested avocado sushi, edamame, and hot rice, and then only picked at and played with it once it arrived (thx J.J.).  But last night around 7pm, he announced "Ari's hungry" and then, surprisingly, sampled a wide variety of foods: Chicken finger, crackers, apple slices, chocolate ice cream, and a pickle sandwich.

Yup. He even made it himself.

Dinner of (neutropenic) champions.
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Ari has now been fever free for 36 hours!  YAY.  His cough is significantly better and he has no other viral symptoms.  But, we still must wait for counts to rise.  And most frustrating, we still can only be in the room or outside.

And to get from inside to outside, Ari must wear a mask...which he refuses to do (we tried yesterday and it didn't end well).   I feel so bad for the little guy.  He knows where he is and he knows there are play spaces and toy rooms and movie rooms and robots and halls and little babies and all sorts of other fun stuff to explore right outside his door.  But he can't go out there.  And he doesn't understand why he's stuck inside.  We're trying to distract him (as are guest puppet shows and new toys) but I'm dreading the next couple of days. 

And I'm taking suggestions for activities/distractions...and hoping for a count-rising miracle!