Inpatient Day -4

WBC- 1.5
Hemoglobin- 9.8
Platelets- 14
ANC- 1.3
Weight today- 54.56

Our night last night was pretty good, she woke up once on her own to potty, and otherwise the nurse woke her up every two hours to keep things from sitting in her bladder. This chemo stuff is hard on your body. Its unbelievable all the meds they have to have her on to protect her body. This morning started early with some Potassium replacement. It was pretty low this morning so they gave her some replacement. Today we decided not to give her any meds until she had something in her tummy so we got her some froot loops and milk. Then I slowly gave her the syringes by mouth, waiting about 1/2 hour in between each one, hoping to help her not get so nausea's today. It really helped and she didn't feel nausea's at all today. :-)  Not much changed today, the doctors did rounds and went over all her labs, her respiratory stats, etc. I asked them about her ANC going up to 1.3 because yesterday it was 0.3. The ANC is the number that will be completely wiped out to 0.0. They explained to me that this is very normal and that it is because of the steroid they put her on that it went up. Soon her body will adjust to the steroid and her ANC will start to drop again. No new changes, and no real new plans for the day. About 8:30 our nurse today (Ann) came in and started her chemo.

Mid morning we got a knock on the door and it was a volunteer delivering the mail. Ariauna got her first package as inpatient in the hospital. She was so excited. It was a package from the Burrows in our ward at home. Each thing was wrapped separately, and there was even a present with my name on it....The Milky Ways were for me, and I immediately opened one and ate it...   Chocolate...  Mmmm.

She was so excited to get more things. I am telling you, we have only been in the hospital a few days and when you can not leave your room, things get mighty boring. She wanted me to go play bingo the other night at the Ronald McDonald House just so I could win her some more crafty fun things to do. But that happened to be the night she was not feeling so well so I didn't want to leave her. She immediately started to color and do the activities in the smurf book and she can not wait to paint her fingernails and toenails, but wants Amy from Child Life to do it and she won't be back until Monday. We had a pretty quite afternoon, the nurses were in every few hours to do her vitals and to give her more medicines. We spent most of the afternoon watching this:

She definitely loves the Twilight series and can watch them over and over again. We brought our whole series with us and she NEVER gets tired of them. We watched two of them today. We did play a few games of Memory and Spot it today too.

Later this afternoon evening the Chaplain (religious person) stopped in to visit. She offered their services to us and gave Ariauna this little package. A Chaplain is suppose to support all religions and be there to help you know matter what religion you are. It was very kind of them and I appreciate knowing if I need something she can help me or find some LDS people to help me. There was even a CD with quite comforting sounds and music to help soothe a child. Ariauna especially liked the angel bear.

 It was not long after that, our Social Worker Marie stopped by with this special coloring book. It is really cute inside and tells the story of having a Bone Marrow Transplant.

Ariauna ordered mini corn dogs and fries for lunch today. She ate 1 of the 6 mini corn dogs and probably 10 fries, so not too bad for lunch. Late this afternoon we gave her a shower, changed her bedding. We were getting quite the laundry of blankets, special pillow cases, pj's and undies so I decided that because she was doing so well today and having a "Rainbow" (see her mood light up at the top of the room) kind of a day I  would run back to the RMH to do a load of laundry. I know next week she is going to get sicker and I am probably not going to want to leave her so while she was having a good day, I decided to run.

I ordered her dinner right before I left so she would get it and could eat. She ordered chicken strips and fries and a chocolate milk. She ate one of the 2 big pieces of chicken and several fries and drank all of her milk. Still doing pretty good with food today. While I was gone she skyped with Camilla and the kids. Sadie and Jaxon are at Angela's tonight because Jerry and Austin are at an overnight backpacking trip for Scouts. I got to the RMH and started a load of laundry, went downstairs and ate dinner (Spaghetti dinner) and then went back up and switched the clothes to the dryer. While I waited for the dryer to finish I stopped in and visited with Rachel (the nanny a couple of doors down from us) and went and visited with another family who is leaving to go home tomorrow. They gave me like 4 more pillows they bought when they got here and the vacuum from their room since our room did not have one. It was really nice of them. Now I will have plenty of pillows when the kids come to visit. My laundry got done so I hurried and folded it all, picked up the other few items we needed from our room and headed out to the shuttle, I barely made it on the 7:30 p.m. shuttle (which is the last one for the night, unless you call to get the private hospital shuttle which is one of the security guards). When I got back Ariauna was still skyping with cousins and her brother and sister and had been the whole time I was gone. She had eaten her dinner and was still very happy. About 9:00 I went out to get a picture of the hospital all lit up. We came one night to the hospital at 9:00 at night and it was beautiful, all the kids had their special colored lights on in their rooms and it looked so pretty. Well here is the picture, it isn't as pretty as the first time we saw it in the dark. A lot of the kids already had their dark blinds shut for the night. I will have to try to get another picture one night when there are more lights showing. Ariauna's room is one of the two rainbow one's right above the covered pull through.

Ari and I watched a couple of shows on the Disney channel. Then she asked for a warm blanket (that means she is ready to be tucked in bed for the night) and I tried to blog. I was falling asleep doing it, so I shut down the computer and hit the sack. Hoping for a good night :-)