June 25th 2001
Cranes and trains

Over the weekend James began to experience pain in his right forearm. The usual pain meds were not adequate. The other worry was the poor results from last Thursday's bloodwork, which suggested that James' bone marrow was in big trouble. If the bone marrow problem is because of repeated chemos, that's bad, because it means we can't use chemo as effectively as we would like. Or if the bone marrow problem is due to cancer taking over the bone marrow, then that is an even bigger problem. James seemed to be going downhill on the weekend, the happy times overshadowed by times of pain and lethargy. We started making plans for a trip to Sick Kids on Monday morning, with a view of radiation for James aching arm, which we assumed was due to cancer on the move.

This morning began with bloodwork, done at home in Peterborough. To try and redeem the day, it was decided that Ben would come with James and I, and that we would catch the GO Train in Oshawa to add some spice and fun. Meanwhile I had left a message for Carlos, our photographer friend from the National Post, who was holidaying nearby, and who has been working on a "photo essay" of our family. That means he hangs around with us for several days as we do whatever we do, taking lots of pictures, and generally keeping in the background. He said "Sure, I'll come", and that made four of us boys, setting off at 9.30 this morning for Toronto. James was still in a lot of pain, so Carlos had heated up a bean bag for him to put on his arm, and that seemed to help. Ben and James both went to sleep as we travelled the 115, but right on cue, as soon as we hit the 401 they both spontaneously woke up and began counting trucks. James seemed to be perking up.

We got to thinking that we might have some time before the GO train left the station, and right next door is Cooper's Cranes. So we used the car phone to call ahead, and the nice lady in the office at Cooper's Cranes said "Sure, drop in." By the time we got there, (259 trucks later, according to James) they were ready for us. This was no walk about tour, it was a hands on adventure. First we got to check out the largest hydraulic crane in Ontario. Very impressive. Brian the operator hauled the boys up to the cab and started the motor. The cab is very high tech, with as many pushbuttons as the Apollo command module, and the crane can reach up 510 feet, and has a maximum lift of 650 tons (Reader's Digest/National Geographic style, I should now say "That's as much as 500 automobiles" or "That's as heavy as 12,784,429 beanie babies," but I digress). Both the boys got to rotate the crane, extend the boom, and raise and lower the hook. Then we moved on to the oldest crane in the yard, nicknamed "Snort", and cranked it up for a test drive. Very noisy. By then the responsible adult part of me realised that we needed to leave right away to catch the train, but the boy part of me won. So we stayed for another twenty minutes, missed the train, and tried out a rough terrain crane, with enormous wheels. Again the boys had a blast learning how to operate the controls. A very satisfying start to the day, and James was definitely feeling a lot better. The look of pain that had been in his face all weekend was gone. The look on Carlo's face was interesting.

Having missed the train, it was necessary to continue by road, which allowed the boys to get into some real serious truck counting. Carlo offered to buy them a special treat if they counted 1,000 trucks. No problem. James counted a thousand trucks. "What will ya give us for 2,000 trucks?" asked James. "Two treats!" replied Carlo. Apparently we passed a little over 2,500 trucks by the time we reached Sick Kids parking lot, where James decided the wheelchair was not required, " 'cos last time we came Dr Baruchel told me I don't need to use a wheelchair!". James' arm pain had now dropped to "level 2" from a high yesterday of "11 out of 10", and I was feeling apprehensive about taking Dr Baruchel's time to check out a boy who was in much better shape than 16 hours earlier. Sure enough, after seeing James, Dr B decided to hold back on radiation, which was just fine with us. And at the same time the morning's blood results came through, indicating a marked improvement, and it was decided that James was ready to start the VP16 chemo again.

By now it was lunch time, and "Two treats time!". The first treat was waiting for us outside the front door of Sick Kids. During our consult with Dr Baruchel, Carlo had been at work, and his friend Roberta the medic had arrived in a beautiful, shiny ambulance. I guess it's no wonder that Ben once described cancer as "A lot of fun", because here we were, another dream come true for the boys, a chance to have a guided tour of an ambulance, turn on the flashing lights, and check out all the equipment. Lunch followed, and Carlo made a valiant attempt to teach the boys how to use chopsticks. No. Perhaps another time they will understand why two sticks are better than one fork. Then it was treat two time, and I am ashamed to say I got suckered in to a couple of very expensive toys from the gift shop.

And now we had some unexpected free time, as radiation was not happening. So we went off to see long lost Esther, a friend from the past, where James and Ben had a terrific time with her two large and friendly dogs, with their long, wet tongues. Once again I experience the guilt of saying No! to our children's deepest desire, that we get a dog. Now at this stage the day was by all events going much better than anticipated except for one thing: we hadn't had our train ride. Carlo seemed to have caught the spirit of cramming in as much fun as we could, so it wasn't really surprising when he suggested that we remedy this deficiency by taking the subway and then the Light Railway Train out to McCowan station while he drove our van over to meet us there. We liked the idea, so off we went, Esther joining us for the ride. As always, our thanks to the TTC for providing wonderful entertainment for a mere $5.50. All too soon we reached the end of the line, and joined Carlo in the van.

Which just left the Bowmanville Zoo. Had a brief but exciting time there feeding and petting the deer, some more photo ops for Carlo, and it was home to see Pam and eat our lamb-burgers for supper. A game of croquet with his friend Cam down the street, another chapter of "Lord of the Rings", and off to bed. A good day. Perhaps James really will be able to attend Camp Oochegeas next week.More on that later.
Syd