Brinley made counts this week with flying colors, ANC was 2700 yesterday!! Woah! So we went in today to get her chemo, she got the methotrexate and vincristine. It took a while, of course, we were there for over two hours again, first they had to give an IV medicine that helps with nausea, then they gave the other two. We saw her usual doctor finally, after well over a month, then we saw an oncologist we hadn't seen before. He was quite the chatter box. We talked a for a long time about her walking, he explained a lot of the things they look for to be concerned about. She's walking pretty funny still and falls a lot, so we are just watching her for now. He feels like if she's happy and functioning okay, and it's not affecting her life too much, which is true, we shouldn't worry too much about it for now, just keep an eye on it. I kept asking questions because I was enjoying his willingness to take time to explain things to me that I had been wondering about, but I think David was shooting daggers at me with every new question, because it would be a 5 minute explanation for each one. Poor David...lol. But I was learning a lot because he wasn't afraid to tell it to us straight. I asked about relapse, for example, and how common it is, and he was very straightforward, instead of reassuring us that she would be fine, he was honest and upfront. It was nice.

She had lost a little weight since last time, so we met with the dietician about her eating. She advised us to switch her back to whole milk (we recently switched Jade and Brinley to 2%), hopefully that will help. Jade could use the fat on her body too! I don't like hearing she has lost weight, but it wasn't a ton, so I won't get too overworked about it. Chemo does that kind of stuff.

Next week she will go to the orthopedic specialist to see if her bones that were fractured are healing okay and not affecting her growth. They can help us decide if we should con tine physical therapy or not. If her walking issues are just a side effect of the chemo, then there isn't much physical therapy can do for it, we just have to let the medicine wear off. She has two more doses in this phase of treatment, then we move on to Delayed Intensification in January if she doesn't have any setbacks. Next visit she will have a lumbar puncture and get chemo in her spine. It's funny, I always feel fine while we're at clinic, but feel sad afterwards, I guess I do a lot of thinking and it gets me down a bit. I hate putting all this poison into her body. I feel so helpless to it all. Sigh. To make things just a little worse I got a ticket on the way home :(

5 comments:

Ashley said...

A ticket on the way home????!!!! I CAN NOT BELIEVE you didn't say "I'm sorry officer, I was just a little distracted since I just left the clinic where my two year old got another chemo treatment."
All of the phases of meds are crazy, I had no idea.

Kristin said...

I know, I really should have pulled the cancer card, it's gotta be good for something!!

John Hanks said...

You should definitely use the cancer card. I use the Santa card all the time. I've saved lots of money and time...even got out of a possible $300 ticket. Who could give a ticket to Santa...or a cancer girl?

Sole said...

... you could also save a lot of money by switching to GEICO. :)

David H said...

10% or more.

Allstate rocks!! lol