So, yesterday Brinley's fever came back, so to the hospital we went. They checked her blood and guess what?? Her ANC was all the way up to 1000!!! So although I was fully expecting us to be admitted, we got to go home! And we can stop the IV antibiotic now that her counts are up. That was GREAT news, no more midnight IV's! Needless to say our spirits are up and although yesterday was a crazy day, we get to have a somewhat normal weekend! Today we got up to do our Saturday morning cleaning, and now we are headed to a Dinosaur museum with.......THE WHOLE FAMILY! That never seems to happen, so we are excited.....ahhhh, the little things we appreciate now! Have a great weekend!

We got to come home today, with a nice long list of instructions.  They left it up to us, they said they could keep us there if we weren't comfortable coming home.  I thought about it, but honestly, I really wanted to get out of there, my other kids need me, and Brinley is feeling pretty good, so if they're comfortable, I'm comfortable.  My biggest concern was that Taylor sat by a girl at school all day yesterday who had the flu and her mom made her go to school.  I talked to the docs and they said since we all had the flu shot and there aren't any new strains out there right now we should be okay.  I wish people would just keep sick kids out of school.  


Thanks to David's boss and coworkers for being understanding this week, they are busy at work and really needed him there.  Surely it was very frustrating for them, hopefully things will smooth out now.  Thanks also, again, to my mom's coworkers for letting her stay just ONE MORE day, I promise she will be home tomorrow!

Brinley's ANC was 0 again today.  They said it could be that way for a while, Delayed Intensification really does a number on them.  But really, they don't know.  One thing I've found about ANC's is there is no rhyme or reason behind it, so we have no idea when that number will come up.  In the meantime we came home and spent a couple hours disinfecting and cleaning the house so we could rest easy that there weren't a bunch of germs floating around.  Some wonderful friends from church brought dinner, so I didn't have to cook.  

They said Brinley has mucositis and she is taking a medicine for that (when you get sores on your mouth and rectum, it can get so bad you can get them through your whole intestinal tract) We hopefully caught it early enough she will not have a lot of pain from it (those are the sores still on her bottom).  We are also still pumping in the miralax to try to get her all cleaned out, and it has been less painful for her to poop.  (I sure put a lot of poopie details in here, lol).  She has to have a really powerful antibiotic, fortaz, through her central line every 8 hours until her ANC is above 500.  She'll get a CBC on Monday to see where it is.  She was 99.6 before bed, so I'll probably be checking her temp tonight, we do the antibiotic at midnight.  No chemo this week, possibly held next week as well if her counts don't recover.  I don't have much else to report, we are just glad to be home.  I am tired.  Do I say that too much?  Oh well, it's the truth.  The nurse was not very quiet last night doing vitals and kept waking up Brinley, and our room was right by the bathroom and the door slammed every time someone went in there.  Then the morning nurse came in at 8, when we were finally sleeping soundly and I woke up to her right in my face trying to whisper to me that Brinley needed to take her meds.  Woah, I wanted to tell her to back up at least enough so I could wipe the drool from my face without her seeing me!  Ever heard of morning breath?  If I open my mouth to talk, you'll be sorry!!  She was cute though.  

I'm trying to keep everyone happy and failing miserably.  Jade is crying constantly, Brinley needs me 24/7 and is freaking out if I give the attention to Jade, Taylor is being understanding but is probably suffering quietly.  He who cries the loudest gets the most attention, right?  I just have to pray that the Lord will somehow get me through this phase.  Heck, maybe he can just get me through each hour, one at a time.    

I had to go to my OB/GYN appointment this morning, so David came to the hospital and I ran over there, everything looks good for baby.  My doctor and I are on the same page, he comes in, measures, listens to the heartbeat, asks how I'm feeling, I say good, I'm outta there within 10 minutes total.  It's great.  I didn't dare reschedule again, even though I wanted to really bad, they probably hate me there, I've been a total flake!  

PRAYER REQUEST:
Could all of you praying for Brinley slip in a little prayer for me too?  I could use it...come to think of it, throw in the whole fam.  Jade is being weird, I don't know if it's emotional or physical, something just seems off with her.  She has a dr appt on Friday and I will talk to him.  She is also running a low grade fever (99's) off and on for a few weeks now and says her bones hurt once in a while.  She is really going through a lot right now, it is so hard for her to understand.  David is one in a million, we would not survive this without him.  He's so much stronger than I am.  He would wake up every hour with Brinley if it meant I would have a decent day and not be tired.  He has a lot of pressure on him right now, so our whole family could use a little extra heavenly help.  Thanks!  

We are still here until tomorrow at least. Since she got a fever last night they are keeping us one more day. She has been borderline off and on, at about 100 degrees, but has not yet gone over the 100.3 mark, so she is still considered fever free. The blood culture never grew anything so we don't know the cause of the fevers, we are just hoping whatever it was, the antibiotic is getting to it. Her ANC will not budge, it is still at 0, needless to say she will not be getting chemo this week. We can't even leave the room to go play with her ANC so low, so it is getting frustrating to be stuck here for her and for us. She has been handling it pretty well, but was on the grouchy side today. She's had a lot of meltdowns, she doesn't want them to take her blood pressure and is crying about everything. She doesn't seem to feel as well as usual, but I can't tell if that's just because she is sick of being here, or if something is wrong. They are not too concerned about her diaper sores, they seem to be healing and they don't think they are on the inside, so that's good. Taylor and Jade are missing us, but I am also nervous to take Brinley home with no ANC, with all the stuff the kids are exposed to at school and pre-school. This is frustrating.

On a positive note, I have to mention a couple things. My mom happened to be here this weekend and I am SO grateful she was here. I don't know what I would have done without her. She decided to stay until tomorrow, and I know she is EXHAUSTED from all that she has had to do. I really needed her, and I know some people from the library had to pick up the slack so she could stay, so if you are reading this THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! I really appreciate it, it would have been so chaotic without her. Another thing worth mentioning is the day we went in the hospital, the washing machine broke, ugh! The first repairman my mom called said we might as well buy a new washer because the repair was too expensive. My mom called around and talked to someone who sounded cheaper. She explained our situation and he called her back later and told her he was coming today to fix it for FREE!!!! I couldn't believe it, what a relief to not have to worry about where the money would come from to repair it. All because someone was willing to step up and help us. I'm going to post the company name tomorrow, and if you live in Salt Lake and ever need someone to repair your appliances, please call them!!! That was so generous and we are so grateful.
Sooooo, please pray that Brinley will stay fever free, and whatever was causing it is gone. I don't want to go home only to turn around and come right back, not to mention having to pay the copay for the ER again! Thanks for checking in on Brinley!!!

We are still here, and don't have much to update. Brinley's ANC is still at 0, so we are hoping tomorrow it will be going up. They might let us go home with 0 ANC if she is fever free and looks healthy for 24 hours. She had a fever at 10 this morning and has gone the rest of the day without one, but the nurse just took vitals and it is going back up. So we don't know that we'll get to go tomorrrow. We are still waiting on the culture to see about the infection, tomorrow at 3 will be 48 hours and they should have some results. She has some sores and is still in a lot of pain when she goes poop, she sweats and screams trying to get it out, even when it is soft, and that concerns me. Other than that she seems happy and is feeling fine, she's been making everybody laugh.

Brinley was admitted to the hospital today because she got a fever. When we got there the ER was PACKED! Knowing that Brinley's ANC was 200 on Thursday, David and I got very nervous. Let me just say I love our hospital! The nurses took us back away from everyone and got us right into a room. I was so grateful, I know they were swamped, but I always feel like they take such good care of us. I don't have to fight them to keep Brinley away from all the germies floating around the ER. When we first arrived her fever had shot up to 101.5 or something like that (it had only been about 100.3 all day) so they wanted to get an antibiotic in her right away. The problem was that her line wasn't letting them draw any blood. There is a medicine they can put in it to clear the line up, but they couldn't get the antibiotic started until they took the blood culture to see if she has an infection. And they couldn't wait for the pharmacy to send up the stuff to clear her line. So they almost had to poke her to get the blood draw. The nurse decided to try one more time, and this time we jumped in to give him all kinds of probably incredibly annoying advice about how to get the blood out when the line is being stubborn (we were quite desperate to not involve any needles, the x-rays they took had been bad enough already!). So he tried all of our silly advice, give the line a good strong flush first, hold her arms up, put her in a different position, and guess what?? It worked!! We were soooo happy. He was definately the hero of the day, especially for putting up with us telling him how to do his job! Annoying right? Turns out her ANC is 0. Yep, zero. Not a good combination with a fever. Of course that is an immediate admit, so we got in pretty quick.

The good news: Brinley is in very good spirits. She is flirting with the male nurses and being silly and pretty happy, with a few rough patches. So it hasn't been to bad thus far.

The bad news: There is no explanation for her fever, and was about 101.7 until they gave her tylenol to bring it down. She has no other symptoms and that really scares me that it is a bacterial infection, and with 0 ANC I am very nervous and really anxious to find out what is causing the fever. They x-rayed her stomach because she is still having stomach pain and now has a diaper rash. She has been pooping like crazy the last few days, but it is painful every time, even with soft poop. (sorry for the details, lol) So they said she has a TON of poop in her and they really need to get it out. The problem is with 0 ANC they can't give her an enema because the risk is too high for infection. So we'll just have to continue the miralax (we've been doing that at home already) and hope it all clears out. The nurses said they call it FOS. Full Of.......I'll let you finish it. We got a good laugh out of that, we said that is true in more ways than one!

They also took a urine culture (no cathader, thank goodness, also too risky for infection) too see if there is an infection there. Sooooooo, bottom line is we don't know anything right now except that she has a fever, and has nothing in her to fight off an infection. We should know more tomorrow. David stayed at the hospital and I came home with the kids. Long night for David...I'll update tomorrow.