Thursday, November 29, 2012
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Friday, November 23, 2012
Giving Thanks!
Over the past several days it's been nice reading and hearing what people are thankful for and today (and every day) I am thankful for many things but specifically my little family.
God has blessed me with a husband that is so Loving and Giving to me and his daughter. He never really complains about anything except maybe Lakers but they don't count in my book :) He is so hard working at everything he does, there is nothing lazy about him.
God has also blessed both hubby and I with with the most precious little jewel, our daughter Sophia. We are especially thankful for her and all that she is. She has gone through so much in just a little bit of time. I am thankful for Life, her life and that God is allowing her body to respond so well to all the treatment. She hasn't complained much about what she is going through unless something makes her feel different like those yucky steroids but that wasn't her fault. She is quite the trooper!
I am also thankful for our other little blessing that God is allowing us to care for, our son Samuel. He didn't have to give us another baby but He did and I am thankful for his little life that he's been living so far in my womb. Sam isn't even born yet and he already means so much to our family. Having a boy is going to change things up a bit in our house but in a good way. I know Sophia is just going to love him and be a little jealous too I'm sure, but rightfully so :)
God has blessed me with a husband that is so Loving and Giving to me and his daughter. He never really complains about anything except maybe Lakers but they don't count in my book :) He is so hard working at everything he does, there is nothing lazy about him.
God has also blessed both hubby and I with with the most precious little jewel, our daughter Sophia. We are especially thankful for her and all that she is. She has gone through so much in just a little bit of time. I am thankful for Life, her life and that God is allowing her body to respond so well to all the treatment. She hasn't complained much about what she is going through unless something makes her feel different like those yucky steroids but that wasn't her fault. She is quite the trooper!
I am also thankful for our other little blessing that God is allowing us to care for, our son Samuel. He didn't have to give us another baby but He did and I am thankful for his little life that he's been living so far in my womb. Sam isn't even born yet and he already means so much to our family. Having a boy is going to change things up a bit in our house but in a good way. I know Sophia is just going to love him and be a little jealous too I'm sure, but rightfully so :)
Hospital Routine
Just a little update on how Sophia's Chemo appointment went on Wednesday and a little of what we go through and why an appointment can take up to 5hrs or more.
We got to the hospital at 1pm and I got Sophia all checked in at registration. We usually have to wait about 20 minutes before she gets called to go to triage where they take her vitals, height and weight but since she didn't have an appointment to see her doctor they sent her right away to get that all done. We did have to wait about 15 minutes before triage was ready for her but that's pretty normal. Once she was all done at triage we were sent down the hall to where she would get her chemo but we had to check in there first. We then waited about half hour for them to call Sophia in a room where they drew blood from her picc line and once that was done we then had to wait about an hour for them to get results and get the order ready for her to get the chemo. So for that hour we can go wherever in the hospital, which there's plenty to do there, and once the nurses are ready for her they call my cell phone and we head back to the nurses station. So Sophia and I went to have lunch and after we walked to the garden to watch them decorate for Christmas. It's looking so cute out there and I cant wait til its done so Sophia could see it all and we could do a walk through. Sometimes they have this lady who volunteers her time and she reads books, and gives books away, and does crafts for the kids and Sophia seems to like that but she wasn't there that day. Anyways, the nurse finally called me and said Sophia's counts looked great and she would be receiving both chemos (last visit her blood levels were lower than they wanted so she only received one chemo) so we headed back upstairs to the nurses station and waited about another 20 min for the order to be ready so we killed time in a waiting room till they called her in. Finally they called her in a room where they give her the chemo. One of the chemo is a push through, meaning they push it through themselves into her picc line and the other is hooked onto a machine that feeds it slowly into her picc line. After each chemo is done they do a saline flush to clear her line so total it's about an hour to receive both chemos. Once this was done we then waited about 10 min for them to call us into a different room were they would do her dressing change to her picc line which takes about 10-15 minutes depending who does it, this time it took about 20 min because they were teaching a nurse how to do it. I usually don't mind but I really just wanted to be home already. Overall she did well receiving the chemos and with her dressing change. They even gave her a cute pink beanie which she loved and wore it proudly walking out and as we met hubby/daddy (he took the train from work to meet us there) she got to show it off to him :) So in the end we were there about 5 hours and this wasn't including seeing her doctor, actually we usually see a resident first then her doctor which makes it for an even longer visit at the hospital. Hubby, Sophia and I finally hit the road and we got all that lovely holiday traffic but it was nice because Sophia go to nap before we headed over to my moms to celebrate my niece's birthday and hubby and I got to talk the whole way :)
This is just a typical appointment at the hospital that doesn't include the doctor visit and doesn't include any procedures.
Phew! Writing that got me just as tired as going through it. Everyone's prayers are much appreciated as we continue through this "sick season" It really sets Sophia off with treatment when she gets sick which in the end it prolongs the ending of this all.
We got to the hospital at 1pm and I got Sophia all checked in at registration. We usually have to wait about 20 minutes before she gets called to go to triage where they take her vitals, height and weight but since she didn't have an appointment to see her doctor they sent her right away to get that all done. We did have to wait about 15 minutes before triage was ready for her but that's pretty normal. Once she was all done at triage we were sent down the hall to where she would get her chemo but we had to check in there first. We then waited about half hour for them to call Sophia in a room where they drew blood from her picc line and once that was done we then had to wait about an hour for them to get results and get the order ready for her to get the chemo. So for that hour we can go wherever in the hospital, which there's plenty to do there, and once the nurses are ready for her they call my cell phone and we head back to the nurses station. So Sophia and I went to have lunch and after we walked to the garden to watch them decorate for Christmas. It's looking so cute out there and I cant wait til its done so Sophia could see it all and we could do a walk through. Sometimes they have this lady who volunteers her time and she reads books, and gives books away, and does crafts for the kids and Sophia seems to like that but she wasn't there that day. Anyways, the nurse finally called me and said Sophia's counts looked great and she would be receiving both chemos (last visit her blood levels were lower than they wanted so she only received one chemo) so we headed back upstairs to the nurses station and waited about another 20 min for the order to be ready so we killed time in a waiting room till they called her in. Finally they called her in a room where they give her the chemo. One of the chemo is a push through, meaning they push it through themselves into her picc line and the other is hooked onto a machine that feeds it slowly into her picc line. After each chemo is done they do a saline flush to clear her line so total it's about an hour to receive both chemos. Once this was done we then waited about 10 min for them to call us into a different room were they would do her dressing change to her picc line which takes about 10-15 minutes depending who does it, this time it took about 20 min because they were teaching a nurse how to do it. I usually don't mind but I really just wanted to be home already. Overall she did well receiving the chemos and with her dressing change. They even gave her a cute pink beanie which she loved and wore it proudly walking out and as we met hubby/daddy (he took the train from work to meet us there) she got to show it off to him :) So in the end we were there about 5 hours and this wasn't including seeing her doctor, actually we usually see a resident first then her doctor which makes it for an even longer visit at the hospital. Hubby, Sophia and I finally hit the road and we got all that lovely holiday traffic but it was nice because Sophia go to nap before we headed over to my moms to celebrate my niece's birthday and hubby and I got to talk the whole way :)
This is just a typical appointment at the hospital that doesn't include the doctor visit and doesn't include any procedures.
Phew! Writing that got me just as tired as going through it. Everyone's prayers are much appreciated as we continue through this "sick season" It really sets Sophia off with treatment when she gets sick which in the end it prolongs the ending of this all.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
There's No Place Like Home
It's that time of year where everywhere we look people are sick, yucky coughs, runny noses and sneezes and our little Sophia was one of them. Three weeks ago she came down with a cold and we were scared she would also come down with a fever, which we feared because then we'd have to take her into the hospital. She did pretty well with her cold and had no fever but she had a runny nose and a slight cough that didn't want to go away but as long as she had no fever and we kept her hydrated she was doing well. On the third week of getting over her cold she ended up developing a fever at the end of that week, last week on thursday evening, and by the evening I mean late at night, 10:30pm. I ended up calling the docotor on call to see what I should do because they don't allow her to take any meds like tylenol while going through her chemo treatment, so he advised me what to do and I did and by 1:00am we had to take her to the E.R. at Children's because her fever ended up going too high. So the nice thing about her having Leukemia (because believe it or not we have to look at positive things during this ugly time) is we don't ever have to wait to be seen. They were already waiting for her and took her in right away and started what they had to do. She ended up having an ear infection, we had no idea she had this because she showed no signs of it bothering her at all. They told us she would need to be admitted and they couldn't say when she would stay til, so the plan was to keep her there so they can keep an eye on her and administer more antibiotics throughout the day. We ended up staying 9 hours in the E.R. due to them running tests and running antibiotics in her and boy were we tired. She stayed awake til about 8:00am and finally knocked out for about 4 hours. They took us to her room where she and I slept for about 2 hours and finally the on call doctor came in and said she was being discharged that day because we could just give her the antibiotics at home. We were so happy because there's no place like home :) She's been getting better since then and her cough and runny nose have been disappearing. I forgot to mention that the same day she was admitted she was suppose to have her doctor's appointment/chemo treatment so that ended up getting cancelled because her counts were too low. We were fine with that because Sophia needs to recover and that might have made things worse. We watched her over the weekend because they said she could still get fevers, which she didn't, so she rested up because on Monday (November, 12, 2012) we had to take her back so they could do her chemo treatment. We went to her appointment where she was going to get her picc line dressing change and her 2 chemo treatments. She did really well with her dressing change, no crying at all, but her counts were too low so she only got one of the chemo treatments. Her doctoer didn't want to give her that second dose of chemo since she's still recovering, on top of her conts being low. So her next appointment will be for the day before thanksgiving. She is a little off track with her treatments so hopefully she will be able to get back on the next time we take her. Your prayers are much appreciated while we go through these holiday seasons and people around us are sick. We pray that Sophia doesn't get sick again for a while . . . or ever :)
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