11/26/08 - Clinic Visit

Brinley went to get her chemo today. She is getting used to the routine and actually enjoys clinic sometimes. Today they were giving away bags that were donated by someone for the cancer patients. I wondered who had put it together, and I wished I could have sent them a picture of how much she loved it. I remembered doing all those service projects with the church and not being able to put a face on who would be receiving it, and there we were on the receiving end, watching my daughter's face light up to see the toys in the hand colored canvas bag. That was the face they would not get to see, but did the service anyway. It was touching, and this time, I wanted to see the face on the other end, the person who sat and colored a bag for my daughter and stuffed it with goodies to make her day a little brighter.

We had to wait for quite a while today for the chemo because the NP forgot to order it from the pharmacy, (grrr) and they were very busy. So we sat, and sat, and sat, until over an hour had gone by. It had already been an hour of waiting to see the doctor, so it was a little frustrating. The nurse finally brought it and that was that. They want to check her counts again on Monday because they were still concerned about her red blood count and a possible transfusion, so we'll check Monday, then Wednesday, and then Thursday will be next chemo day. I was concerned about her eyes, they are still red and puffy, the onc said it's possible with her ANC so low, the bacteria that gets in her eyes is irritating them with nothing to fight it off. If it gets worse, or gunk starts coming out of them, we need to call. They also made me nervous because the NP noticed she was walking with her foot turned in, which I had not really noticed. I knew she was walking different, I just figured with her just starting to walk again, it would take a little time to look normal. But the NP said that the vincristine can cause the kids to walk that way long term, and she seemed concerned. Now that she said that, I notice it every time she walks. I am very nervous about long term affects of the chemo, so I don't like that at all. She saw the physical therapist last week and has improved quite a bit since then, we will see how it goes.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving, we are very excited for turkey day at our house! Nothing like getting totally, completely, stuffed and then trying to roll yourself home. I am missing David's family this year, and wish we could see them. It's not the same without them and this is the time of year I love to be surrounded by family. We have so much to be grateful for, I feel it this year more than any other year. Funny how that works, you would think it would be the opposite, but I have found so much good in my life lately and am overwhelmed with all that we have been blessed with. This has been a rough few months, I can't even type this without tears sneaking up, as they do so often lately, but the tears come as quickly for the hard stuff as they do for the good stuff, and we have a lot of good stuff. Happy Thanksgiving!