Slumber Party!

My best attempt at capturing her smile.

I got to meet the world's largest dog, Bentley. They visit about 200 hospitals a year and raise money for kids and canine cancers. His first dog died of cancer. I am 5feet 4 in. Bentley's 7 feet tall standing on his hind legs.

She adores her big brother

"What What?!" 

Boxing Champions

Daddy's Girl

 Last night for the first time we spent the night at the hospital all 4 of us. It wasn't bad. We took the laptop and some movies and popcorn. The floor has a family pantry with a microwave. The nurse was new to us and did a really wonderful job. She got a fever around 3am and by 3:30 it had gone down a little bit but at around 9 this morning it was still at about 100.3.  They say it's typical for the type of chemo she's recieving or it could be infection, so they took a blood culture this morning. If it is infection it'll show by tomorrow morning, but it still has to sit for a few days if nothing shows up today in case anything grows in the vial within the next few days. They have to rule out infection but are still starting her on three antibiotics just in case.

Today, well, right now actually she's receiving her final dose of chemo. These next three weeks she'll be in "recovery" from it.  Her platelet and white blood cell numbers should go to zero and then begin to grow to a healthy level on their own if she responds well to treatment. After a few weeks when she is "healthy" again she'll begin her second round of 10 days of chemo.

She is doing very well say the doctors. Her spleen is exceptionally better. Her liver is slowly but surely recovering.  Her abdomen is a little less swollen and her hernia's seem to be causing less damage "down there".

THEY TOOK HER OFF OXYGEN YESTERDAY!!!  That is a very good thing. She still has the tube in her nose in case they need to turn it on suddenly, but she's gone for almost 24 hours now without it and has kept her oxygen in the 90-100 range, so praise God for that!

She has been vomiting so they took her off feeds early this morning and will see how she does today and may start her again little by little this afternoon.  They still have her on fluids to keep her nutritionally balanced and hydrated.

Yesterday "Dr. Z", (our favorite hemotologist/oncologist...sshh...) showed me a diagram of Bela's chromosones and explained it to me. Everyone has 22 chromosones plus either the x or y.   For each number there is a pair, one from the mom (that's me!) and one from the dad (that's Beto).  They aren't sure if the first in the pair is from the mom or dad and same for the second. Is this too much biology? Anyways, The 1 and 21 are abnormal in that instead of being the same size like all the others, one is shorter than the other, as if part of one from #1 broke off and attached itself to the smallest one in #21.  Google "diagram of 23 pairs of chromosomes" and you'll see a good picture of it. So her condition is obvisously not genetic, but the doctors aren't sure when during the growth process of the baby this chromosome abnormality manifests itself. I was wondering why they can't detect this during pregnancy as they can Downs, which is also a chromosome abnormality. But I forgot to ask Dr. Z.

Today they are transferring more platelets to her as her count was at only 11,000.

Today please pray for...

1. Her fever to break
2. There be NO infections
3.  Her to continue to breathe without the oxygen tube, and to continue to move in the right direction, that her spleen and liver will continue to go back to their intended size and place, and her abdomen will also.
4. that these next three weeks of recovery will be healthy for her and 100% positive in terms of how she responds to treatment.

Thank you for all your prayers. These past 10 days with her in chemo have been a little more relaxing since she has been getting better and hasn't had any dangerous symptoms, but I feel like I'm holding my breath all the time. I pray she will continue to "sail through" all of this. Thanks for your prayers!