Emily is on an upward swing

Emily's fever seems to be completely gone, it's been almost 3 days now, and she doesn't feel the slightest bit warm. This past week shows what a roller coaster cancer can be. A week ago today we didn't have the results of the blood cultures, and we were told there was something "odd" in the x-ray. And here we are a week later, Emily is up at Grandma's baking cookies, Tracy is at work, and I am home chasing Haley. Normal stress. Like many difficult things we have gone through these past 7 months, the first time is always the toughest. If Emily gets a fever again I won't be as scared because I know what they are going to do to treat it.

Emily is even better than before this past hospitalization, the effects of the Dexamethasone have really decreased. She is much, much happier, her clothes are starting to fit again, and her appetite is returning to normal, whatever "normal" is :-).

Her treatment was changes from Tuesday to Wednesday this week. Since we know her ANC was 1100 on Friday there is a very good chance she will start reconsolidation. She needs at least 750 ANC to start the course. If she does qualify it will be a long day, being put under for an Lumbar Puncture (LP), IV Cytoxcin after she wakes up. Then she has to be on IV fluids for several hours and given IV Zofran for nausea. We will also be pushing some medcation in a syringe via IV port here at home, called Cyterabine. We are learning that we really don't know what to expect the second time she goes through these courses of therapy, but when she went through Consolidation she would get sick for 1 to 2 days following the treatment, but was feeling pretty good the rest of the week. Her ANC levels will be very low during this phase, it really knocks out the bone marrow, so she will be at risk for more hospitalizations. To guard against that we are going to do our best to keep her away from germs. That is a tough task with a wild two year old running around the house.