Can any good come from bribing your child??

It's round 2, night 2 of chemo. He's 4. We have chemo nights. Chemo nights! How the hell did this happen? When did it become routine to have chemo nights? Anyway... I digress...

It's round 2, night 2 of chemo. Round 1 was a disaster. He took it the first 4 nights. Got horribly sick overnight on night 1 but nights 2-4 he was ok. Night 5, he didn't even absorb the chemo before he got sick. We repeated the dose again the next night. Same thing happened. Sick before he cold even absorb it.

I am a paranoid wreck this time around. I don't want my kid to get sick. I don't want to be the one giving him medicine that will make him be sick. But I don't want him to have cancer either. So I give him the medicine. And I make sure that he keeps it down. I give him Zofran and then a dose of Ativan. I laughed at them when they suggested that! Ativan? A narcotic? Seriously? He's 4! Then reality set in... I guess if I can give him chemo, I can give him a narcotic too, right? So I give it to him. It's supposed to calm him down and make him less anxious taking the chemo. I wish someone would give him that message. He seems to have missed that memo.

Round 2, night 1 was ok. He took 1ml of the chemo and wasn't handling it well. I knew we were in for another 'spitting it out' before absorbing it.

So, I went there. The place you SWEAR as a parent you are NEVER going to go. You know that absolutely NO good can come of it. That there is NO turning back once you go there. But I went there anyway. I did it. I bribed him. I told him that if he took his medicine and didn't 'spit it out' (as he so politely calls throwing up) I would give him a surprise. (Thankfully I had a DVD that I knew he wanted hidden in my bedroom) He looked at me funny but he took the chemo! He took it and he didn't spit it out!! I was so thrilled! We waited the 15 minute absorption time and I ran upstairs to get the DVD! He was SO excited. I knew at that moment why so many people frown on bribery... because, even though it tends to work... it becomes an expensive tool to get what you want.

But then I realized... in our case... a lot of good can come from bribery. If I bribe him to take the chemo and he takes it and if the chemo will keep him here with us longer then I'm all for bribing him with whatever he wants.