Our Weekend

Friday was our clinic day.  Abbey was a trooper and did a really good job getting her port accessed.  Her blood looked good so she didn't need any blood or platelets.  Her platelets were on the low end of normal.  They haven't been that high since she was diagnosed so we know her bone marrow is starting to produce healthier blood on its own.  She had her chemo and seemed o.k. with it while we were there. Jim ran into another family that was on the floor in the hospital when we were there and they have a three year old little girl named Leah who was diagnosed with ALL one week before Abbey was.  Jim saw Leah and he said she is very swollen and sick like Abbey is.  Her mom said one thing to Jim.  She said "we just want our little girl back."  It's so hard to see how sick these medications make them, but we need to continually remind ourselves that being this sick will eventually make them well again.  Please pray for Leah and her family too as they are on their own difficult journey with leukemia.  

 When we got home Abbey started complaining of stomach pain.  She would fall asleep for a while and then wake up crying of stomach pain.  This went on for a few hours.  We were concerned so I called the doctor and he said it can be normal to have stomach pain after having that kind of chemo.  At around midnight she woke up and started throwing up.  We both got really nervous so Jim called the doctor again. He told us to take her to the ER so my mom came over to be with the boys and we headed to the hospital.  By the time we got there, she was o.k. Very tired, but not throwing up anymore.  After monitoring her for a while, they sent us home.  We didn't get home until after 3a.m. so we were exhausted.  We're not really sure what caused her to get so sick.  It could have been the chemo, but she's had that chemo four times before and never had that reaction.  They thought she might of had some sort of infection, but she had no other signs of infection since then so we are just thankful that she's feeling better.

Saturday and Sunday were both good days with her.  She is feeling pretty good.  She was coloring today and more interested in toys and activities that we would bring her on the couch.  She will be on the steroids until Friday and then on Friday she will have another bone marrow biopsy, and two doses of chemo, one by IV and one injected into her spine.  It will be a hard day, but after Friday, she has a one week break from all medications.  We are really looking forward to that!  On Friday they want the leukemia cells in her marrow to be less than 0.1%.  She was close to that at the last one, so we feel pretty confident that she will be where they want her to be that day.  Please pray that it is below 0.1% so they can stay on the normal schedule of treatment and not have to increase her chemo and medication.  So far everything has gone as planned (except for our one trip to the ER) so we are thankful for no big bumps in the road thus far.

Tonight Jim was reading a book to Jacob in his bedroom.  Abbey was laying on the couch just about to fall asleep and I was sitting next to her watching the baseball game (we could hear Jim reading). All of a sudden she got off the couch by herself and starting trying to walk into Jacob's room.  I helped her in there and we sat and listened to the story.  It is so hard to see her like this, but so encouraging when we see those little signs that it's still our Abbey in there.  Jim had a big smile on his face as he read the story and we all sat in Jacob's room together.  It was a few minutes of "normal" and it was good.  The nurse told us that once Abbey is off the steroids, we will see our Abbey come back.  We are very much looking forward to her feeling more herself.  

Thank you for all your encouraging words as we struggled to get through last week. Each one lifted us up and we so appreciate you all.  Some of  you are our closest friends and others we've never met, but you're all dear friends to us.  We were reminded by a book that we just started reading that our God is God of the mountaintops and Lord of the valleys.  Thanks for going through this valley with us and helping us keep our eyes up.