How could I NOT write about this milestone? I can’t … so out of semi-retirement, I come. Perhaps, out of my winter funk is more accurate, but whichever, this is all about Joseph Alfred Riguzzi, gifted to me by God on a beautiful Easter morning too many years ago.
Seems so simple, but as the saying goes, “the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” Yup, that should be on my tombstone, but I didn’t take that sitting down.
October is Down Syndrome Awareness Month. The perfect time to share the story of discovering I would soon be blessed with a special child, the ensuing pregnancy and how we almost lost him.
Happy Sunday! Today I want to follow up on last weeks post about spreading a positive message and being kind. Because October is Down Syndrome Awareness Month and due to an incident on Twitter, I thought we should talk about compassion and empathy.
But when I saw kids with brain tumors and babies who were sick, I became grateful that my child only had leukemia. My perspective changed and I felt blessed, his fight was not as difficult.
We ended up with a long delay after the horrible ordeal in the hospital. We had to go to the clinic every few days, but Joey’s blood counts were low, and he wasn’t able to start the next phase for 15 days. The next stage had four spinal infusions within two weeks with all the other steroids and chemos.
So there we were – heart problems seemed to have subsided, but then we had new issues to face. Joey’s arms and legs were starting to quiver, and he was experiencing diarrhea again. The body shakes were a side effect from a chemo.
Joey is admitted back into the hospital to start the next phase. This particular phase is an extremely high dose of methotrexate. It was given slowly into the spine over 30 minutes, and then given in the vein over the course of many hours. The side effects would be horrific mouth sores and vomiting.