Another Day Down!!

Abbey & Jack

Today is over.  Yeah :)!!!  I know it's not a good thing to wish time away, but if I am going to be completely honest, we are wishing this phase to be over.  We are on day 5 and have 34 days left of the intense chemo (but who's counting?!!)

Our day started a little rocky.  I did something pretty stupid, which I learned and will never do again.  It is actually the second time I've done this (I did it right after she was diagnosed) so you'd think I would've learned my lesson the first time, but no, I had to do it once more.  We have been giving Abbey her steroids in a couple bites of ice cream and she has been taking it with no problem.  This morning we were up so early to go the clinic that I couldn't imagine talking her into eating ice cream the second she got out of bed (she always just wants a big cup of warm milk with nesquik first thing in the morning) so I decided to just put the steroids, crushed up in her milk.  Well after a few gulps, she noticed I slipped some medicine in there and refused to drink it.  The problem at this point is how much did she get, if any...

So she got extremely upset and our ride to the clinic was one that I would like to put behind us. Not only did we have the milk fiasco, but also had an itching episode.  Let me explain.  This morning I was told by our doctor to put emla cream (numbing cream) on her thighs to take the edge off the shots.  Well a few minutes into our ride the cream started REALLY bothering her and she was itching her legs and crying like crazy.  After a few minutes of wondering what was worse, the itching or the more intense pain from the needles I decided to take the cream off.  I think I made the right choice because she immediately calmed down.

She actually was quite pleasant today considering our rough start.  Our clinic visit went as good as could be expected.  They last minute wanted to check her numbers so we had to quick put the emla cream on her port and let that soak in for a while before she was accessed.  I was worried that 30 minutes wouldn't be enough to fully numb it, but she didn't even flinch.  Her numbers again looked great (Go Bone Marrow!!) and we sat around and waited (I actually read at least 28 pictures books to her) a while for them to get her shots ready.  

We also had a nice, big, white, furry visitor named Jack come to our room (see picture above). Abbey loves dogs so was super excited to get to pet him and get a picture with him.  He was very gentle and it was a nice distraction as we all knew what was to come.  

Abbey took the shots like a champ.  She never ceases to amaze us and again was as brave as could be.  I think I kissed her for about 10 minutes once they were done and was just so happy they were over.  You can be sure I put a huge X over today now that those are done!  After her shots they watched her for one hour for any type of allergic reactions, but she had none so for that we were very thankful!!  Thanks all you pray-ers out there.  Keep up the great work :)  We now have a two day break and go back Thursday for two more doses of chemo through her port. We are almost done with week one of the steroids (3 more days) and so far she seems to be handling them really well.  She did request my famous lemon chicken today (which was her absolute favorite food while on the steroids the first time) so I have a feeling I will be making that everyday now for a few days.  Anything for our brave little warrior :)  Thanks for checking in and we'll keep you posted on Thursday.

Oh, and the doctor told us not to worry about the missed/smaller dose of steroids this morning.  We got back on track tonight with the ice cream and I learned my lesson once (or twice) and for all.