Home Sweet Home!

Yay for our cozy house! I have never wanted to be home so badly. I missed Cade and Rob and although it was 2 nights, Cora and I were both so ready to blow that joint! Anyway, she is home because the blood culture didn't show a bacterial infection and she didn't continue to run fever. Her ANC is not up. It is 192. He let us come home on the premise that we will go back on Monday to the clinic to get her checked again. She is still coughing and runny nosed. So we don't expect chemo on Monday, but are praying that her ANC will be moving upward. If it isn't up in a few weeks I think she will have to have another bone marrow aspiration to see what is going on. We are expecting her bone marrow to kick in and start producing white cells on its own. She's in great spirits. Right now she has a sword in her hand and she is carrying around a bag of gold coins saying, "Argh Matey, this is my treasure." So how much better than that can you get???? OK, the Captain is calling me, I better go before I have to walk the plank!

Waiting

Well, today was pretty much boring and unproductive. Cora hasn't run a fever since yesterday. She actually feels great and it was pretty hard to entertain her in a 10x15 room all day long. When she woke up this morning they ran a CBC and her ANC was lower this morning than it was yesterday. It was down to 174, no one really knows why. We are hoping and thinking probably just lots of chemo and a cold keeping her down. The bacteria culture they did on her blood hasn't shown bacterial infection so far (which is good.) So depending on what the counts look like tomorrow morning, we will most likely get to go home. Unless, they drop dramatically. We are hoping that with the maintainance fluids and antibiotics that have been going into her port, the ANC will start to make an upward trend. Dr. Whittle doesn't want to dwell on what we will do if it doesn't go up, because he thinks it will on it's own over the course of the next week. Hopefully by a week from Monday we can start the chemo again. Thanks for checking in on us and the sweet phone calls and prayers! We love you all!

Hospital Visit

Well, we knew we couldn't keep the bubble girl well forever, and here we are back in the PSU. She has had extremely low blood counts that aren't quickly recovering despite the break from chemo. She has thrown up a couple of times the past few days and had a runny nose and cold symptoms. Today she got a fever and it reached the magic number of 101, so we were admitted to the hospital. Her ANC has once again dropped to 220 (it was 340 on Monday). So...this is a waiting game. They did a blood culture to check for a bacterial infection (it takes 36 hours to get results.) If it isn't bacterial, which the doctor doesn't suspect, that means it is probably viral and that is probably what is keeping the counts down. We don't know exactly what action that will entail. Tomorrow they will test her for RSV and just watch her counts. Since we have been at the hospital, she hasn't run anymore fever and is playing and acting like she feels fine. Hopefully, the counts will start to come up on their own. Please pray for a quick raise in counts! The sooner we can get out of here the better. We will update tomorrow.

CONFINEMENT CONTINUES!!

Well, we went back to the clinic this morning and were home by 11:30. No they didn't get us done that fast, Cora's counts are still too low for chemo. Remember that she can get the chemo if her ANC (absolute Neutrophil count) is 750 or higher. Last week it was 550, today it was 380. AHHHH! This is making me crazy! Once again, the doctor said it is fine and normal for counts to take this long to recover. She said that sometimes in very young kids, especially girls, the chemo is actually an "over treatment" and that is why the counts get so low. So once again, we will stay home all week and bust out the Chlorox wipes to try to keep the germs at bay! We are 2 weeks behind in treatment, and she won't have any chemo meds at all this week. Of course mommy's fear of low counts is relapse, or the need for more transfustions, but her hemoglobin and platelets are holding and there are no blasts at all in the blood! Praise God! So this week we are hanging around and praying for higher counts! Thanks so much for checking in on us!

Commenting

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Pennies for Patients Flyer!

Too Low for Chemo!

Cora has been a little puny the last few days. She has had a really bad cough that she can't kick, NO APPETITE AT ALL, a low grade fever, and a very upset tummy. We couldn't get her to eat much and when she did, she couldn't keep it down. I spoke to the doctor Thursday night and he said to bring her in Friday morning, just to check on her. We went to the clinic on Friday and her ANC (Absolute Neutrophil Count) was 1045. This is the test they do each week on her blood to see how susceptible she is to infection and how well she can fight it. Anything over 1000 is really good. So the doctor said she looked a little dehydrated, gave her some fluid through her port, and sent us home. He also gave us a prescription for an anti-nausea medicine. So she improved all weekend. She started keeping food down, no more fever at all, and the cough is a lot better. We went back today for chemo and they checked her ANC and it was down LOW to 550. They won't do the chemo unless it is 750. So after 2 hours of waiting, we packed up our things and headed home. The doctor said he was not at all concerned about the drop in her counts. He said this is normal at this point and probably a result of all of the chemo and a little bit of a cold at the same time. He took her off her oral chemo medications that she takes at home and said she could have this week off in an effort to get her counts back up and we will go back again next Monday. So...we are a week behind, but that is OK. We are going to spend this week quarantined at home and pray for better counts next week so that we can move ahead.

The funniest part of the day was when Cora woke up this morning so excited to go to the clinic. (Poor kid, that's just about the only place she's been going lately!) And I said, "Cora what do you want to wear today?" Cora who is very into fashion picked a plaid skirt out of her drawer and said (no joke these are her real words), "I want to wear this hottie tottie little number!" I think she has been spending WAY too much time with aunt Lauren! So here's a picture of her outside the clinic this morning in her "hottie tottie little number!"