Chemo round 1 day 11

Eating Fries!

Massage Therapist

Monday afternoon, Violet is sitting with her massage therapist blowing bubbles and giggling:)  She is feeling better today after a somewhat tough weekend.  In fact I just realized last weekend was rough too.  Anywhooo.......Saturday we started to see her blood counts drop which is to be expected and is a symptom of the chemo.  As I mentioned in a previous blog the chemo doesn't know the difference between good cells and bad and so it attacks ALL rapidly developing cells.  They draw blood from her tubes in her chest, and test her blood and measure several different blood cells.  I ask for a print out every morning and I'm trying to educate myself on this whole process.  So, basically Vs white blood cell count currently is zero, which means that she has no immune system or ability to fight infections so we just have to be very careful, lots of handwashing and somewhat isolated, due to flu season.  This entire floor of the hospital is air locked so we are allowed to walk a round this floor, which we have done seriously a million times.  But, no visitors or real adventures:)  This is a time when we are somewhat anticipating a fever and potential mouth sores.  So far we are just seeing a decrease in her energy level, she's very mommy clingy and her appetite has dropped off significantly.  They hang a sheet of paper on her door every morning for us to write down every thing she eats and drinks to measure her calories.  We also weigh her daily and keep a close on her weight.  They even go so far as to measure every diaper on a small scale.

On Sunday V wouldn't even let me get out of the rocking chair with her, she just wanted to be held and snuggled.  She was pretty fussy, and wouldn't eat and then she did decide to eat some Doritos, of all things, and then was sick and vomited.  We put her back on an anti nausea medicene and the suspision is that it is still some nausea from her chemo treatments.  The other thing we are watching is a slight difference in her walk,  one of the chemo drugs can affect walking and although what we are seeing is probably not because of the chemo, we are watching it closely.  It could be just that she's weak from not eating and out of practice. 

Today her numbers for her blood are even lower than yesterday but she seems to be in better spirits and has already eaten a little bit, but not much.  She has had music therapy this morning.  I have been able to get away a bit, I went down this morning and took advantage of the free parent massage.  It was so nice to do something for myself.  And even though it was only ten minutes it was amazing.  I am allowed to get two free massages a week.  So, as of right now we are kind of laying low today and recovering and then the plan is Thursday to do her stem cell harvest.  They will be doing the surgical procedure to put in a large port in her groin area on Wednesday and then Thursday hooking her up to a big machine that pulls her blood and separates the stem cells so that we can freeze them at OSU and then give them back to her after her last three rounds of chemo to help her recover.  If everything goes well, we will have the stem cell harvest Thursday and then maybe (fingers crossed) go home on Friday.   SQQUUUEEEEEEEE.....So, we would get a few days break before we start round two of the chemotherapy. 

We are still receiving lots of support from family and friends.  We continue to feel the support and appreciate it greatly.  I am concerned as we have had several visitors that have driven down to the hospital hoping to see us or V, and they were turned away.  Because of Violets fragile state she is not allowed off the floor and visitors are not allowed up, also, because I am generally here by myself I can't leave her to come down either.  I'm so grateful for the love and I am so sorry that some have had to waste the gas money and time.  Please know we are grateful for the support but can't accept visitors right now.  Thank you for understanding.

We have also been asked several times about the donation process.  At the top of the blog is a place to donate to our family with a secured link.  If you have any questions please let me know.  I am so blown away by all the love and support that we have gotten and the financial contributions are greatly appreciated.  Being up here with Violet is my new job, being her care giver.  I am no longer able to work as caring for her is more than full time, we are really struggling financially as we were not prepared for this and the medical bills are starting to roll in.  Lets just say WOW!!!! Medical care is CRAZY expensive.   Thank you so much to everyone that has donated, we are so grateful.  Thank you for following our journey.  I will update again when I can.  Lots of love