July 18, 2001
Potato Launch

For a week following James' return from camp we had a difficult time, with increasing pain, loss of weight, vomiting and loss of mobility. A transfusion of platelets and red blood cells was necessary at the week's end. Even our weekend visit with Nanny to the cottage failed to work its magic, with James spending most of his time in bed cradling his aching left arm with a hot water bottle. The plus side to all this was it gave us lots of opportunity to read Tolkien together, and we have now moved into the second book of The Lord of the RIngs. At times all three children would cuddle up in bed for the readings, but then, during the exciting bits, Rebecca would be unable to contain her exuberance and would start jiggling and bouncing, which bothered James in his pain and nausea. Once again Pam, Nanny and I found ourselves in the place where you feel that this really is the beginning of the end, it's worse than previous downspins, we are losing the battle. Yet James and I got to have some pretty intimate chats, and despite the pain, he said "I am happy on the inside!"

Monday arrived, and James woke with a sore neck. Jolt. Can't help leaping to dark conclusions about that piece of information. Later on, bloodwork showed that chemo could be started again, so James took his first dose of 30 mg of VP 16 and the next morning he was a new man. Pain way down. Goodbye to the wheelchair. Dave, his counsellor from Camp Ooch arrived, armed with lots of photos, and our spirits soared. A quick phone call and we were on our way to Airtech to show Dave the racer. Installing the brake system was the order for the day, and it all came together nicely. Just last Friday Br Baruchel reminded us that the Soap Box Derby race is coming up fast, and it looks like we are on schedule, just the paint job to be done now. But there was added interest at Airtech yesterday, in the form of a potato gun, so everyone downed their tools and followed Big James and Little James outside for the ceremony. The potato gun is a piece of plumbing pipe about three feet long, open at one end, and connected to a closed chamber with a threaded cleanout plug at the other. A couple of igniter wires complete this simple but elegant device. You ram a raw potato down the pipe, open the cleanout and squirt in some flammable spray, close it up quick, aim and fire. Bang! and one potato hurls through the air. Very satisfying. But Airtech is an innovative company, always looking for ways to do better, so for the next launch they add pure oxygen to the chamber first. Big bang! Potato leaves too fast for the human eye to see. Cannot see impact point. Hmmmm. Little James wants to mount the potato gun on his soap box racer.

So like the oxygen enhanced launch with its disappearing potato, life these days seems to consist of big bangs, and we cannot see where we are going. But the news is good today, and we thank our friends for helping make our lives so rich.

Syd

Ps. I hope I have succeeded in attaching a photo of James and Ben with the racer.