Long Days, Short Years: Mother's Day (2 months late...I know, I know...)

Mother's Day was a tough one this year. We are struggling accept my own mother's health issues and limited time with us while living such a distance from family. No matter how old you are...it is just rotten to know your mom won't always be there for you :(

And two days before Mother's Day we had taken Bubba for allergy testing to diagnosis what we were sure was a milk allergy. But then the skin testing was negative. And we decided to do the blood work to get a more accurate answer. And on a whim the doctor threw in a few additional tests on his blood to check his immunity...and that's when our world was turned upside down.

Within hours, I was getting frantic calls from the allergist. Bubba's white blood cell count was off. (Here's your brief introduction to hematology...we have three types of white blood cells - one type fights viral infections, one I can't remember :), and one fights bacterial infections.) The last one - neutrophils - is what was off in Bubba. Normal neutrophil count is 1500 and above. His was 200. Yes, 200. He was in a state of acute neutropenia. He was at an extreme risk for severe, life-threatening infections. We were scheduled to repeat his blood work and meet with a pediatric hematologist in a week...as in they "fit us in". It was a scary thing...any sign of a fever and we were immediately to be heading to the ER.

So...yeah. That was the mood of my Mother's Day.

My solution? Let's go to the beach! It wasn't warm enough to go in the water so we didn't wear suits...but it was a perfect therapy session for our minds and our souls! It didn't hurt that we ended it with ice cream (no pictures - but Bruiser did ask if I wanted to take a picture before they started eating...guess they are trained!)