Emily had her weekly exam today. It was a very quick trip to the clinic, gave some labs, and went home. Emily is doing really well. She has much less body pain overall, and she is walking mostly on her own now. Her appetite has gone to near zero. Right now a calorie is a calorie so she can have pretty much anything she wants, but nothing sounds good to her, especially the things she craved just 2 weeks ago. Her Doctor says she is doing really well, he even muttered, "she's becoming like the model patient". That was exciting to hear. I talked for a while with Dr. Link last week and he reiterated something we were told the day Emily was diagnosed, he wouldn't sugar coat anything. So when he says she is doing great, it means great. Last week I was trying to get him to admit that there must be at least something that didnt seem right in her scans, and he told me, "If she were not doing well I'd tell you, she's looking really good."

What's coming up? Even though Emily is doing well, it's very likely that she'll be back as an in patient in the hospital in the next few weeks. In phase 2 the drugs almost completely suppress the bone marrow, and as a result she won't have much of an immune system. Dr. Link has told us twice that we should have a bag packed and that 10 to 14 days after the first Phase 2 dose, we should expect a hospitalization. We are on day 8 now. The likely symptom will be a fever. When and if that happens we call ahead and head to the hospital to check in. So don't be shocked that after all these good days that you'll read that Emily is back in the hospital. It's almost a given. Today she was getting close to being neutropenic.

Next week she is scheduled to have another lumbar puncture and an all day chemo, but it will be dependent on her blood levels, and many patients have to delay a week before they receive the second dose of phase 2 chemo. And IF she ends up in the hospital I don't know how that will impact the next dose. They want to let her recover from the dose she is on now before she gets the next one.

Emily is going to try to go to school as much as possible. As much as we can we are going to get out and take advantage of Emily being more mobile and excited to do things.