On two bottles of children's aspirin

The latest thing I've decided to toss for my making space project is two unopened bottles of cherry chewable children's aspirin. These bottles are nearly sacramentals, being the visible sign of a eucatastrophe.

When Thomas was released from Children's Memorial Hospital last year, November 3, he was receiving 22 doses of various oral medications a day. We had a full-page chart just to keep track of which ones he should get when, and plastic bags with the time of day (he had to take them at five different times) with the appropriate syringes inside so we didn't get mixed up, forget one, or give him one twice. One of the medications he was on was aspirin, regimentally, as a blood thinner. He had to take one-half of a chewable children's aspirin tablet once a day, crushed, dissolved in breast milk, and administered with an eyedropper or oral syringe. It was definitely the most time-intensive medicine to administer, although he actually liked the taste, which was something.

At less than $2 a bottle generic, it was definitely his cheapest medication. There are 36 tablets in each bottle, so each one gives 72 doses. 72 days after Thomas got out of the hospital was Sunday, January 14. I went to Walgreens that day to get more aspirin, and bought the three-pack. "He'll be taking these for a long time," I reasoned.

That Friday, January 19, Thomas had a followup with his cardiology team, including a chest x-ray, which they do every January for all their patients, and an echocardiogram. The echo showed heart function just on the low end of normal -- improvement beyond the hopes even of his very optimistic cardiologist. The x-ray tech was a very nice woman; I asked her if I could see the image when she was done (and Thomas was rescued from her chair, which he liked not at all).

When Matt and I saw Thomas's chest x-ray in the emergency room on October 12, we stared at it, silent, stunned and disbelieving. His heart was expanded all the way out to his ribs, and the whole chest cavity was a dull gray cloud.

January 19, though, Thomas's heart was the shapely core of his being, surrounded by a fabulous tree of glowing white blood vessels carrying life out to his whole body. I could hardly be surprised when his cardiologist called me at quarter to ten that night. "I'm sorry to call so late, but I just saw his x-ray," she gushed. "It's so beautiful! Can I put it in my presentation?"

Based on this amazing recovery, Thomas's cardiology team started weaning his drugs, and aspirin was the first to go. Thus, I only used two and a half of the 108 aspirin I bought January 14. Now he's down to two medications and one dietary supplement, some of which they're talking about eliminating at his next visit. And Amy's slide show, to teach the med students at Children's Memorial about cardiology, had a very happy ending.

These two unopened bottles of aspirin are toast. But I'm keeping the open one. I crushed the fourth aspirin in it last week and dissolved it in water to display the first flower Thomas ever brought me. I still have enough in there for 32 more flowers!