10/12/08

Having a dance with Daddy.

She likes to pretend to give herself "medicine" through her line.  Don't worry, it's an empty syringe that only had saline, and she doesn't know how to hook it up.....

Serious stuff..."quiet Mom.....I'm concentrating."

Brinley is becoming a pro at playing doctor.

The in-home nurse came today to draw blood, and she had a hard time getting anything (we have this problem quite often) so we had to get a medicine that will clear out Brinley's central line. So the nurse ordered it (cathflo it's called) and came back later and we had a successful blood draw. yay. So her ANC came back at 700. She has to be at 750 to start chemo tomorrow. Since it is soooo close we are still going to clinic tomorrow hoping it will boost overnight to where she needs to be. We are anxious to get going on the next phase, so hopefully we will be able to.

Another reason we are keeping our appointment tomorrow is we are having some problems with her dressing for her central line. She got a major rash under her dressing and it is itching her like crazy and we are not sure what to do about it. She has itched it so bad at night, that the whole dressing has come off 2 nights in a row - not good. They are very particular about infections, and the inside of the dressing has to be sterile at ALL times, the dressing changing process is very sterile and we take that very seriously. So you can imagine our panic when she woke up and it was completely off with her line just dangling there ready to be pulled out by any wrong move. We put a new one on and called the nurse, she said to hold off until she could look at it today. Last night the same thing happened, and by the time she got here today, parts of the rash had started to ooze a little, and the dressing was coming off AGAIN because of the moisture. The nurse calmed us down and reassured us that she has seen much worse, and that it could wait until tomorrow when they could look at it at clinic. She put a different type of dressing on, one that has a little padding on, that will hopefully ease some of her itching, and it also sticks much better. So we will check it before we go to bed and see if she's managed to get that one coming off too. We can't put anything on it because then the dressing won't stick to it, so she has to be absolutely miserable not being able to get to it to itch it. Hopefully they will have a magic solution at clinic. We've taught her to give it a pat to itch it instead of rubbing it, but the minute we turn our backs, yep, she's rubbing it like crazy. Also, all the dressing changes have been miserable for her, you have to swab the whole area with pure alcohol 3 times, then scrub it with another solution. I know it burns like crazy because she screams, but it is something we HAVE to do everytime she itches it off. Poor girl.

Other than that - all is well!