Best brothers

You can only imagine what it's like knowing your child has a disease as scary as cancer. To add to my worry, my five month old baby woke up last night making a horrendous cough on par with Luis'. Oddly enough, this was the first night Luis didn't wake up with a coughing fit. When I heard Julien's cough, I pulled him into bed and tried to feed him. He was too congested to breath and eat at the same time.  I noticed that he also felt warm. With the thermometer that happened to already be at my bedside, I checked his temperature and found that he had a fever of 38 C (approx 100 F). With a little infants' Advil and a lot of cuddling, he finally settled.

Being so new with this cancer stuff, I worried about Luis being exposed to his little brother. If they couldn't be near each other, that would put me in a difficult situation, wanting to be with both sick children but having to stay with the baby. He's dependent on me even though I've tried many tricks to get him to a bottle.

When we left the hospital last week, we were given a few phone numbers to call whenever we were concerned about Luis' health or had a question. Around 2 a.m., I called the paediatric oncologist on call to see if he was concerned about our situation. Fortunately, he believes that the boys have the same thing since they've been together this whole time and he was not concerned. That was a big relief. It was probably a silly question to him, but I'm glad he put my mind at ease.

Luis & Julien in matching shirts. That was Luis' idea!

Sometimes, Luis amazes me at how much he loves his little brother. He loves to take care of him and help Mommy with him too. He can make Julien smile and laugh with his silly voices and games. Yesterday evening, Julien awoke from his nap in the parked stroller and was crying loudly. Luis went right to the stroller and started rocking it. He hushed him and put Julien's soother back in his mouth. The two boys really are good for each other. When Luis was in the hospital, I would put Julien next to him on his bed. Even through all his soreness and crankiness, Luis would be happy to have his brother right beside him. We are so lucky to have our boys.