Day Plus 218

Another busy day here in Denver. A wonderful Bronco themed breakfast prepared by the Brent's Place staff got the day off to a good start. We spent the afternoon at the clinic while Simon got his monthly IVig. His counts all look good, and liver and kidney functions are good. He did test positive for parainfluenza, but not sure if it is a new virus or the same one he had back in early December. Ezri now has the sore throat, runny nose, general icky feeling, and I woke up with a stuffed up head. We are going to just hang out at the apartment tomorrow and try to recuperate from the busy week. If we are feeling better on Sunday, we will head home for the day.

Simon's doctor, Dr. Ralph Quinones, is a wonderful man. When he is in the room with Simon, he gives Simon and I his undivided attention. He never gives the impression that he needs to be somewhere else, or that he is in a hurry to leave. He takes the time to visit with Simon, and he always answers my questions thoroughly. Today, he noticed Ezri's nails, painted blue and orange to celebrate the Broncos. He pulled out his phone and shared a picture of his nails, painted bright red.

He has a patient on the bone marrow transplant unit. I think he said she is 9. She begged him to let her paint his nails. Not only did he let her paint them, he also kept the polish on for 24 hours, because she wanted to see it on him the next day. We laughed with him as he shared the story, as well as the comments he go over the next 24 hours. I also told him that the story also told me a lot about him, and how much he cares about his patients. My esteem for the man, which was already quite high, went up even higher.

As I am finishing up today's entry, I cannot believe that I have no pictures of Dr. Ralph, or of the bmt nurses we see in clinic every week. I will have to remedy that next week! I do have a pictures of a typical infusion day at the clinic. The pictures were back in September, when Simon was still mostly bald, and Beau's hair was still growing back in after he shaved it to raise money for pediatric cancer research, and as a show of solidarity with Simon.