Hello! Just a quick update. Brinley is doing great and has managed to keep the fevers away. She has been quite happy. I suspected her counts were low, and that was confirmed today. She got a CBC and everything was borderline transfusion. Red blood and platelets are a concern, they left it up to me to transfuse or wait on the red blood. We decided since she seems to have so much energy we would wait until she was symptomatic, so they want to check her again on Monday and see if things are on the rise. Her ANC is 200, so she is neutropenic, which means we shouldn't go anywhere to expose her to anything, wish they'd have called sooner, like BEFORE I went to the grocery store....oops. It was a quick trip though, you can't be out of SUGAR in this house, that's for sure! We really have to watch her platelets, she is at 27 and they usually transfuse if they get under 25, so she is at risk for bleeding. We have to be careful she doesn't injure herself because her blood will have difficulty clotting. Luckily she is not very accident prone. She will also bruise easily. She has bruises all over her shins, so I suspected her platelets were low. Sooooo, right now we are enjoying the calm, I feel like we are flying under the radar trying to go undetected by the bacteria that would land her in the hospital in the next couple weeks. Does anyone have a bubble we can borrow? It just looks like a couple possible transfusions next week, depending on when her body starts recovering. It seems like there is a lot going around right now. Fingers crossed!

Things are going well for now. We have had so many people step in to help us this last couple weeks, and it has been much needed. I am getting so tired with the pregnancy and the kids, even though Brinley is doing well the help we have received has been perfect timing. We've had some meals from my aunt and uncle, David's parents were here over the weekend and cooked and played with the kids, Alissa (my sis) has been helping a lot with the cleaning, Melanie (my other sis :) has taken the kids for the last couple of wednesdays so I can have a little time to rest, a church member is bringing a meal tomorrow, the list goes on. So although I am feeling very tired and sometimes start complaining, I am so thankful for all the people stepping in to help us, physically and financially. We are so, so blessed with all of these helping hands.

Brinley has been running a temp in the 99's for a few days now, but it has never gotten over the 100.3 mark, so I am just temperature checking every couple hours and praying it doesn't go up. We took her to church on Sunday for part of it, figuring we wouldn't get to the next couple weeks if her counts crash. I think that is only the third or fourth time she has come since her diagnosis, so it was nice to be able to sit all together. We don't dare send her to nursery yet, too risky, but hopefully that will come during maintenance. The home health nurse taught us how to administer the chemo for the 4 day ara-C dose, so David did that. It was a weird feeling telling the kids they couldn't come near, and I couldn't help because I'm pregnant and it is poison, and then injecting it into our 2 year old's body. Makes me sad. Yet here she is, alive because of it. Surely we would have lost her by now if it weren't for this poison. So we'll keep giving it to her, and pray she will be here with us for a very long time. What would we do without her?