Fever scare

Ashlyn spiked a fever Friday afternoon so I had to take her to Munson ER to have blood drawn off both her port and her arm to see if there was an infection going on. She was extremely crabby and didn't want anyone touching her so this wasn't an easy chore (never is actually)! She was pretty up and down all weekend in how she was feeling and today she has been much better. Her cultures finally came back and were negative so that was awesome (saves us an inpatient stay in GR)!!!!
Her counts were done again today and have significantly dropped from the ones done at the ER on Fri. so I will be giving her one dose of neupogen on Wed. and then she will have counts done again on Thurs.


She is such a little trooper!

Clinic today

Ashlyn had clinic today and daddy got the job of taking her this week. The boys only had half day today because of conferences and Caleb had some testing today so I stayed in town to do the school stuff. I'm kinda glad I did too because it was a long long day for Ashlyn and Jim in clinic! Ashlyn needed both blood and platelet transfusions and then got her 2 different chemo and finally arrived back home a little after 8pm.
Andru's conferences went great today and he has transitioned very well into the Catholic school system. The only subject he is struggling in right now is Spanish and until tonight he had never even told the teacher that this was his first year (they start in 3rd grade in this school system) learning spanish. She said she wished she had known earlier!
I have the other two boys conferences tomorrow!
Thank you for all your prayers for Ashlyn
Nicki

Clinic today

Ashlyn had clinic today in Grand Rapids and got her monthly dose of pentam along with methotrexate and vincristine.

I did get a chance to talk to her Dr. about her last bone marrow results too. We are now almost 5 months into treatment and her bone marrow is still showing evidence of Leukemia cells. She doesn't want us to worry that because Ashlyn has Down syndrome could be causing her marrow to respond slower but it is extremely hard not to worry!!!! When Ashlyn was diagnosed with ALL back in June we were told that a bone marrow transplant would likely be a last resort in Ashlyn's case since a BMT in children with Down syndrome are a much higher risk. Now a BMT is still not being talked about BUT it was suggested that I consider bringing my boys down sometime in the next few months to be tested as possible matches.

She still has more intensification chemotherapy to get through and I pray pray pray that her next marrow results are 100% clear!

Halloween 2009

H1N1 vaccine

W..T..HECK!! So I found out yesterday that my kids COULD and SHOULD get the H1N1 vaccine. Within an hour of finding this information out I received a phone call from the Health Dept. that they have a shot for Ashlyn and I could bring her over to get it. I was very very leary about any of my kids getting the vaccine but I went ahead and took her with the mindset that it was best for her! When we got there they had shots for all my boys too so I went ahead and had them all get one. Now they are running fevers and have sore throats, all EXCEPT Ashlyn! I can't believe it! Now of course I am thinking I should have went with my first instinct :(

I did get tamiflu for Ashlyn to start as a preventative since her brothers are all sick now.

Clinic

Yesterday went well despite the fact that I screwed up and showed up 2 hours late (actually I don't believe I screwed up but anyway) Opps!!! I thought that Ashlyn's appt was at 10:30 but I guess it had been changed to a procedure day and we were supposed to be there at 8:00am. So I get a phone call about 8:30 wanting to know where I am and I was still 1 1/2 hours away. So procedure was changed to next week and she will be getting a spinal tap and bone marrow done.

Counts were definitely much better yesterday after the neupogen shots but with her chemo I'm sure they will plummet quite quickly this week. She received MTX and vincristine along with a flu shot and PPSV shot.
She has been very tired today and just acting like she doesn't feel well.

Thank you all for your prayers,

Nicki

Boys UGH!!!!

While out grabbing a few things at the store today my mom bought the boys some long tootsie rolls for a little surprise when they got home from school. I picked the boys up and while we sat there and waited for Andru's bus to arrive Dylan ate his tootsie roll. When we got home Caleb decided he was going to eat his and upon opening it Dylan came up and tried to grab it from him. Caleb pushed him away from him and Dylan went down hard to the floor and started screaming! Me being the big mean mom told him to suck it up and quit crying and screaming. I honestly thought he kept saying that he hurt his thumb and finally he stopped screaming enough for me to get that it was his arm/shoulder that was hurting so bad. So I called our peds office to see if they could possibly see him. The nurse told me to just take him to urgent care since they have x-ray available right there but I had to explain to her that with our insurance it would cost me twice as much taking him to urgent care than to their office so she put me on hold and finally came back on and told me I could bring him in. After getting some Motrin and Tylenol with codeine we were able to get some x-ray pictures to find out that he fractured his collar bone! I'm sure my mom never imagined her purchase would end up like this!!!

Needless to say he is done playing flag football now and will probably think twice before trying to take his brother's candy from him then again probably not! Boys gotta love em'!