Yesterday was growing day for Daniel's and my relationship. We had our first fight. I am actually surprised it took us so long living so close for so long. After talking to Bob (our favorite Dr. Psychologist), he in fact said he is amazed that we haven't fought yet and said most teens and mom's are at each other's throats long before now and their fights are in the thousands by this time. He thinks we are doing unusually well. We disagreed about something, then cried and stomped a round and when Daniel tried to leave to take some time and take a shower to get away from me we realized we were screwed because the 7th floor had no hot water all afternoon (due to construction). So where do you go to go cool off when you are in a 10 by 12 room for almost 6 weeks with the same person. Anyone who has ever had to share a one bedroom apartment with one bathroom and no kitchen can probably understand that we are both feeling a bit trapped at this point. Worse yet, Daniel CAN'T leave. I know there are many moments we probably both want to run away. I decided to give him some space and I left the room for a little while. I went to the family waiting room and we both had some alone time. Before long (about 8 minutes) he called me and asked me to come back...oh and can I please bring him his lunch (hmmmm). We had a nice afternoon with a great live radio show, then an afternoon rebuilding the Sukkah for Rob and Matthew to join us for dinner under our stars, after fun family game night and a later than usual shower (because of no hot water all day) Daniel and I obviously made amends and crawled into bed together to watch Animal Planet's Africa. Neither of us were going to make it to the end of the video so he thanked me for a great day and asked if I could sleep with him tonight. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? He fell asleep cuddled up on my bad shoulder and I stayed awake smelling his clean patchy bald head. By midnight when the C.A. came in for vitals I had had somehow fallen asleep. At 2AM when the nurse came in for his blood work I had absolutely no feeling in my arm any longer but was ready to go back to the plush hospital sofa I normally sleep on confident we had made up. By 3AM I heard the nurses in the room starting to pre-medicate Daniel for getting Packed red blood cells. I peaked under the sukkah wall that was now separating us and the told me his ANC doubled overnight and was now at 80. Woohoo I thought, half awake maybe we will be home in a few days. But when his hemoglobin drops below 8.0 he needs to get blood. This has happened many, many times in the last several months and is fairly routine. Not only that it is a good energy boost before he heads home too. They intentionally do transfusions in the middle of the night for two reasons. One: the kids get Benadryl and can sleep through it because it is very uneventful and takes over two hours and Two: because the kids have to be monitored so closely during the transfusion for very rare and unlikely reactions that the nurses like to do it when they aren't busy during the night. By monitor I mean they stand over the kids with a light and watch for skin reactions and monitor blood pressure, temp and chest sounds every 10 minutes for pretty much the whole two hours. And yes, Daniel typically sleeps through it all and mostly so do I....but NOT LAST NIGHT. The pre medicating went as usual. I.V. Benadryl since he was sleeping. Then I hear the two nurses in the sukkah confirming Daniel's writ band and patient number (typical), then they cross check the first unit of blood and verify it with each other, along with Daniel's patient number and blood type (typical) A Positive by the way (of course he is), then they hook him up and start the infusion (typical) and start to watch him. Then typical stops. Within 5 minutes of starting he suddenly fast and furiously starts this terrible constant loud gasping barking cough attach straight out of his sleep. I suggest he take a drink of water and Daniel abruptly yells back "I took a drink of fucking water, it doesn't help, I can't breath." OKAY, are we fighting again??? When the coughing doesn't let up for a second it is apparent exactly what is happening and this is the exact reason that they monitor every blood product and chemo treatment so carefully. Daniel was having a bad reaction to the blood product. Just not a typical reaction. That's our Daniel, nothing typical. They called a doctor immediately but stopped the infusion right away. We were all in the sukkah at this point although it was starting to tear away from its support so we quickly got it out of the way of chaos. When you are having a coughing breathing attach I am sure a roof and walls falling in on you doesn't exactly help much. A good dose of Benadryl was administered and then some Albuterol and it all stopped as fast as it started. My mind was racing about bone marrow donation at this time and I know there was no way I was going to be sleeping the rest of the night. In fact Daniel's antibodies obviously did not like the antibodies in the donor blood and it just had a bad reaction. I guess Daniel was just in fighting mode for the day? No idea where he gets that? Needless to say we were up literally most of the night so nurses let us sleep most of the morning away. Daniel slept until almost noon today and that is just fine. We ended up doing the first half of another transfusion late in the day and there was absolutely no excitement involved whatsoever. I guess between lack of sleep and low red blood it was no wonder he had no energy all day. Maybe today and tonight's top off will give him good boost of energy to send him home in the next few days.