Just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! We hope everyone has a wonderful, happy holiday! We love you all!

Brinley got her chemo today, clinic went great. She got a Hannah Montana barbie doll from them for Christmas, it has caused some jealousy with Jade....she wants to go to clinic too now! She got her meds and we got the chatty doctor again, he is great, we both really like him. Brinley had lost weight AGAIN, that is 2 pounds in 2 months. They weren't very excited about that, so the dietician wanted us to start her on pediasure for some extra calories. She went from the 25th percentile to the 5th. She said it happens often with the chemo.

As I started whining to the doctor about how Brinley always gets fevers 2 days after her chemo and winds up in the ER, and that would put us there for Christmas, he gave me a nice big peice of humble pie. He told me several patients get the fevers, and one family, who was at the end of treatment, and were used to always getting a fever after the chemo, decided to ignore it because they were tired of the ER trips. Turned out it was an infection, and it killed him. So from my own mouth: I do not know more than the oncologists. When they say she needs to be checked for infection EVERY single fever, I will listen to them wholeheartedly and check for an infection EVERY single fever. It is to be taken seriously. I realize now that her life is at stake every fever, I knew that already. You know the story about the boy who cried wolf, the wolf eventually came. I stand corrected!

Overall, this has been a great phase for Brinley. I hate to move on to the next one. We have two weeks, and then we start the dreaded Delayed Intensification. The doctor today said it is very much like induction the first month, and those of you who remember my posts from induction know it was not a good time for us. In fact, it was really awful. The steroids come back, and those made her so so sick and miserable. It is a two month phase. We have had some coasting time, now we'll be putting our boxing gloves back on for a rough round with cancer, hopefully we'll come out on top!

Well, when it rains, it pours, I guess! This morning Taylor, our 11 year old, fell down on our tile steps and split open her knee. She needed 9 stitches, it was really deep, so they did four on the inside, and 5 on the outside. That is our first experience with stitches. I always wondered how I would handle one of those situations. I guess Mom's get some extra built in calmer in an emergency, because looking back, I don't know how I didn't cross my eyes and faint right there! I have never been able to look at open wounds without getting queasy, but I somehow managed to bandage it up and get the kids to the neighbor's and get her to the ER. It went great, we were in and out in 2 hours (a new experience for us!) The worst part was her getting 5 shots right into the wound to numb it. She wasn't very happy about that, it took us about 10 minutes to convince her that the shots would be much better than feeling the doctor sew her up!! I couldn't watch the sewing part, but Taylor sat there and watched the whole thing saying "COOL!" Now that it's over, she's loving having a story to tell everyone. But no soccer for a week....it was actually kind of nice to be in the ER with a "normal" quick emergency. I really could not believe looking at her knee didn't gross her out at all, I told her she should be a nurse, and she liked the idea.

Brinley got her CBC today and she made counts for chemo tomorrow. Go Brinley! The bad news is that it will make for a rough Christmas day for her, that's usually when the fever shows up, 2 days after. Her ANC is 2700, that makes me wonder if the results were wrong on that last test at the hospital. Oh well, at least she's good now, and we can stop giving the IV antibiotics. Grouchy as ever, but good counts. Sometimes I wonder how our hearts are still beating, lol. David has been up all hours working, so he is going on little sleep already, and had to leave work today to stay with the kids, (on the worst possible day for him) so he will be working late tonight, and I'm just beat with hospitals and cranky kids. My house is a mess (today was cleaning day, I told Taylor there are much better ways to get out of cleaning!), so now I am trying to catch up on that, and laundry, UGH! It'll have to be french toast or something for dinner tonight. Yet we are alive....somehow. Don't they say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger? Maybe when this is over we'll both look like the hulk, minus the green. :) Hahahaha. That's a funny picture. I have pics to post, hopefully I'll get to it later tonight. Thanks for checking in!