Welcome to my nightmare...This is was the hardest time from my point of view. Griffin was getting really worn down. From the weeks of RADS, on top of Chemo, plus he caught CDIFF, plus the months of steroid use was catching up to him, he started to bloat up and the RADS burned a perfect square on his face. His hair has fallen out, is blood counts were at the all time lowest. This was battle time. We trucked through it.

I should update you on the tumour itself. When it was fist detected, in was 3 cms, then a week later, it grew to 10cms and then it was 15 cms (in volume) at its biggest. It was shaped like a hand, growing off of Griffins Tear duct muscle (we found that out later) and spreading out like fingers, wrapping "around" his eyesocket and poking out the top of his eye. It was quite solid to the touch and was as wide as a finger in places. We could only maybe a couple of cms of it, most of it was hidden in the eye socket itself. Griffin was lucky because it grew "out", in other children it grows "in", the outcome is not good.

Again, we were living at the hotel during the week, only coming home on the weekends. We were very lucky to have my Dad who checked in on the house as well as my best friend Andy and her Husband Jer who took care of our cat everyday, took in our mail, etc so i didn't have to worry about the house while we were away! This was the house that we lived in only 10 days before Griffin was in the hospital so we were still living out of boxes at home, and then living out of suitcases in the hotel. I didn't feel settled, always on edge, ready for the next bump in the road.

And do you know what happens to a house when you don't use it regularly? Huge dust balls would haunt the floors, hiding behind doorways and scooting across the halls. The toilet would grow things...even though it was clean. It smelled, odd. It was like a ghost house. I would come home on the weekend to rotten food in the fridge that I forgot to put in the freezer. I would cry as I tossed it in the garbage. That was pure money and much needed food that I was throwing out. It was my responsiblity to remember this...I'm failing. I felt like I wasn't strong enough to keep everything together. I kept extensive notes, kept every piece of paper they gave us, desprete to try to keep it all on track. Everything was filed in this huge binder, I would carry it around with me like it was the holy bible. A lifeline to my sinking ship of a life...

People didn't understand how hard it was to keep 2 households going, one in Niagara falls, then one in the Hotel in Hamilton. The expenpse of living inbetween the two and all the travelling back and forth was taking its toll on our finances. Soon, our savings were gone, we relied on our creditcards. No one should live like that. Ever. And the sad part? I didn't spend my money on booze or drugs or tattoos or vacations or fast cars. I spent my money on Cancer. Fucking cancer. What a complete waste of money. A waste of my money and my time and my health and my sanity. Fuck Cancer...

Good news? The rads were taking effect, the tumour finally started shrinking! THANK GAWD! But Griffin himself had continued to grow through his treatments. It was around this time that he started getting nerve damge in his hands and feet. (Later one we found out he probably has "central" nerve damage as well, which is effecting potty training, speech development, etc) What happened is chemo is designed to attack fast growing cells in the body, like cancer tumours, and hair. But since Griffin is a 2 year old, he continued to grow, to the chemo attacked his growth! So the chemo attacked his new nerve endings in his hands and feet. At one point he could not open his hands, his fingers were clenched together into fists. The doctors said there was a 75% chance he would get the use back. Then he started to limp. His toes began to curl under and he was unable to lift his toes of the ground all the way. Its called toe drop. Well, it made my heart drop. It was bad enough that cancer was robbing us of his health, and time, but now take his mobility? And his independance? This is where I went through my "its not fair stage", I was mad. I was mad at cancer, I was mad it was my baby, I was mad at the situation. I was mad mad mad.

I started seeing a very good therapist, we will call her A, at home in Niagara Falls. At first it was just telling my story. It took the first couple of appointments to get it all out. Just straight facts. No emotion, except for jokes. I can hide pain behind jokes. I'm good like that. A was really good at seeing through my smoke screen but not pushing me. She just let me blabble on and on. I needed to tell someone everything, without sugar coating. When you are telling friend and family the latest updates you tend to skip over the bad parts, focusing on the good bits. Hey, he only puked once today! Things are looking up! You want to save them the emotion of the truth, the truth is, my baby is really sick, and I'm scared shitless. You start to take on the role of peacemaker. I despretely did not want to cause an pain to anyone else. I felt like all I had was bad news to tell everyone all the time! What a Debbie Downer!!! I would tell them funny stories and great news stories about the other kids in the clinic. I would hang onto anything positive I could find. Then on facebook, I would tell everybody the facts. The cold hard facts...