chapter 6

Hot shot, Hoist, Whirl, Medix and Wedge had been in the hospital since June and now it is November and it is almost Thanksgiving. Wedge, Whirl, Hoist and Hot shot all turned six and Medix would be six in December. They were patiently waiting to go home. The doctor said their was a chance they might spend a few more weeks or months in the hospital.

Hot shot, Medix and Hoist found out they were going to have their surgeries hopefully in a few weeks at least. It was going to help them get better.

On Thanksgiving day they all sat in a room together to watch the parade. It was fun to see all the balloons and floats and performances happening on TV. Then they got to see Santa at the end of the parade. It showed that the Christmas season had begun.

During their time in the hospital their families had finished creating the organization called the cancer zoo by September and now many plush animals to help childhood cancer patients were made. The cancer zoo had a variety of animals to choose from, wild cats, wild dogs, safari animals, polar animals, flying animals, rainforest animals, desert animals, mountain animals, forest animals, ocean animals and even extinct animals. These animals could be accessorized to a child's specifically. It can have a port a cath, a Hickman central line, or a picc line that matches the child's. It can also have a bandana to match the color of the awareness of the type of cancer the child has. It also comes with different sets of pjs and bandanas. It also comes with toy accessories to show what hospital tests are done. It even comes with a code for an app for many kinds of tablets to help children learn about their cancer treatment and tend to their animal friends and play with them.

Hot shot, Medix, Whirl, Hoist and Wedge had the original cancer zoo and were the first ones to get the app and special codes to get their animal. The code gave them the type of animal that matched the plush.

The app could do many things. They could feed the animals, bathe them, read stories with them, make music for them where the animal in the app dances to it, play a variety of games with it and buy it cool things with special game currency.

Now many kids are getting a cancer zoo animal in time for Christmas.

Hot shot and his friends hoped soon they would be home again. Even if they may have to spend Christmas in the hospital they hoped their families would come and see them at that time if they were not sick themselves. Which was hard because it was flu season.

They really missed their homes and their families. They hoped they would go home soon and even get to go to school soon too.

"I miss my home and my family," Wedge said.

"Me too," the others agreed.

"I hope we get to go home soon," Whirl said.

"Same here," the others said.

"I hope we get to go to school in person soon," Medix said.

"Yes, that too," the other said.

They took lots of different medicine at the hospital. Some were given by mouth and others were given into there tubies and others were given by injection. They took many different types of chemo to help kill the cancer cells, they also took steroids to help fight the cancer, they also took medicines to prevent and fight infection. It was all to help them get better.

Taking all that medicine was hard at first, but it got easier as time went on.

They did many different things in the hospital during their time there. They painted and made ornaments, made pictures, played games, read books, watched tv and played with others in the hospital.

Their families came to visit them at Christmas time to give them presents and spend time with them. They all had all kinds of fun. They were happy to see all their family spend time with them at Christmas during such a hard time.

Then on December 31st they were told they were going home tomorrow. They were all so excited to finally be going home. "You still need to come back for treatments, tests, appointments and maybe another long stay, but we will keep helping you kids fight the cancer and get better," Dr. Rhino told them.

They packed their bags and headed home the next day.

To be continued.