Home Early

We got a pleasant visit from the oncology doctors this morning asking Abby if she'd like to go home today instead of tomorrow.  She said, "Huh?" We were planning on going home tomorrow because it can take a bit of time  to clear all the methotrexate out of your system.  They had drawn a level this morning, however, and she was already low enough to go home.  We were thrilled!  So right now Abby is playing monopoly express with Anna, thanks to the Alvarados who lent it to us, in her room. Lily and I are trying not to fully succumb to whatever cold virus is trying to infect us.  Thanks to Aunt Linda, we are doing the OnGuard oil thing, taking "KickAss Immune" from Whole Foods, drinking lots of water and drinking copious amounts of Nonnie's lemon-honey tea.  Hopefully one of those things helps keep this cold away.  I plan to go to bed at 8:00 tonight, though I haven't told Mark that yet... 

Thanks for all the prayers for Abby this hospital round.  She did well.  The nausea seems to be the biggest challenge right now.  Next week she gets 4-5 hour daily infusions in the clinic with chemo she hasn't yet had.  There are two different ones and they both cause a lot of nausea.  We are also starting a more full-time homeschool schedule next week with Anna and Lily.  We'll see how this all goes!  

As the new year begins, I am feeling a lot of things.  The obvious things like confusion and sadness are there.  I am also trying to release a lot of the things I can't make sense of, like most of what we are going through right now.  There are so many questions, so many unknowns and possible scenarios that I can easily get dragged down to anger, despair, hopelessness.  But I get up each morning and I do the next thing and amazingly, God meets me there with a thought, a bible verse that is profound, a word from someone who cares, or some small but big gift like snow crystals on our kitchen window that remind me that the God who created crystalization is with us through this and his love is steady, his plan is good, even when I can't see how.    

Noodle Bowls and Bingo

The hospital has lots of lovely artwork

waiting for a procedure

doing Legos in her room

playing BINGO, she won twice!

36 hour high-dose methotrexate

Abby has been the hospital for the last couple days. She checked in Tuesday, had a spinal tap with chemo (went under for that one). Then she started her 36 hour high-does methotrexate infusion. She should be done with that in a few hours. Then she'll get a single does of the PEG (the one that they gave her shots instead of last time because of a possible reaction). They've looked into that minor reaction from when she was 5 and a going to try it today instead of 6 more Erwinia shots. I'm happy with that. Those shots were rough!

Next week Abby will get 5 days of other chemo agents. 4 to 5 hour infusions each day. These will probably make her very nauseous and will drop her counts back to super low again by mid January (1 week later).

This is quite the opposite of what we were planning on doing during this Christmas and Bew Years break. We actually have a rental in Hawaii that we were suppose to be enjoying. I removed all the phone reminders but I still flipped over to check the weather in Estes Park yesterday (10 degrees) and saw that it was 70 degrees in Hawaii. Such a contrast. Snow here, sun there. Hospital infusions here, beaches there. It's hard to not grow bitter in my sadness about the change of our circumstances with these contrasted of what could've been. Hopefully we'll be able to redo some of these things, that we have put aside/missed for now, at sometime in the future. 

Abby is in good spirits. Hospitals make everyone tired but other than that we are doing ok. Have a happy New Years!