BMT day +25

Today's daily photo is brought to you by the Mills family (one of Ariauna's best friends and her family). What a super cute idea! Thanks for sending us the picture!

WBC- 2.2               32 days in the hospital
Hemoglobin- 8.8      54 days away from home/kids
Platelets- 15
ANC- 1.5
Weight- 51.48

Today we got to sleep in a bit. Sometimes on the weekends, the doctors do not come around so early. It was nice to have a kicked back, lazy morning. The doctors came around about 9:30 to do rounds. Ariauna has not had a fever for 48 hours now, yipee!  Her rash is doing a lot better so they want us to continue to do creams like we have been doing, twice a day. They are going to start working on getting her ready to be discharged. In order to be discharged she needs to be able to take her medicines by mouth. So today they are switching over her pain medication and her stomach acid medicine, so we will see how that goes. The doctors also gave her permission to go outside today. She was so excited when she heard that! It will be great for her to be able to get some fresh air.  While we were waiting to get her ready to go outside, someone stopped by her room to paint her face. They are having a tailgating party outside in front of the hospital for the football game today. They actually sent someone upstairs to visit some kids who could not make it outside. Ariauna was super excited and as you can tell by this next picture, it was not just a quick two second paint job. Ariauna chose a pig, because she loves pigs! This is definitely one of our favorite pictures so far from her transplant experience.

 We finally got Ariauna all ready to go outside for her first little adventure. Here we are getting on the elevator with her IV pole and she insisted on taking her trike outside.

I wish we would have had a video camera for the next part of our little adventure today. I think we really could have won funniest home video's.....So we get off the elevator on the main floor and go to head outside. The hospital has a revolving door, so we were getting ready to head out the door. It was a bit much trying to juggle the IV pole, Ariauna's lines so she didn't run over them and make sure she was okay. Anyway, long story short....We went to go over a bump on the floor and the whole IV pole came crashing down...and the funny part.....one of her IV bags (thank goodness it was just her clear fluids and not some important pain med, or chemo med or something) split open and was squirting all over the place...UGH! You should have seen everyone freaking out... I couldn't decide rather to laugh or cry. The security guards sitting at the front counter came running over to see how they could help and to make sure Ariauna was okay. Luckily, Ariauna was far enough forward that nothing hit her or landed on her. I was fast at grabbing the squirting fluid bag and tipping it so it quit leaking all over and then it was all I could do with the help of the security guard to get that stupid pole standing upright again. So now our adventure outside had to be put on hold while we went back upstairs and took care of our disaster. The security guard was rather nice and let us keep the trike downstairs and we very carefully walked back upstairs. The nurses were so surprised to see us back so soon!  They let me know that we are not the first and probably not the last that has dumped the whole IV pole over. We had a different nurse come in to help us because our nurse was busy and she was like, well why don't we just hep lock your hickman line and let you go outside without your pole at all. She was not currently getting any meds other than the fluids and she said she could be off of those for a few hours. Ugh, why didn't they offer that to begin with?  So she got Ariauna's lines hep locked and we headed out for our adventure again, this time without a pole at all, it was so much nicer. Here are some pictures of us enjoying her first time out of the hospital since transplant.

We only ended up being outside for maybe 10 minutes as it was a lot on her little body. She was exhausted by the time we came back in. They got her all hooked back up to her IV's and we both laid down to take a little nap. After our nap we got her in the shower and then it was time for her hickman line dressing change. Today we had one of our most favorite nurses... Em (short for Emily but everyone just calls her Em). I loved this picture of her and Ariauna. We just loved Em and are so grateful for her sweet and tender care!

I still am not at the point where I want to leave Ariauna to go back and forth to the RMH to do laundry. If I do that I have to be gone for several hours and I just am not ready to do that yet. So I just used the laundry facilities at the hospital again today. The laundry is not as convenient at this hospital as it was at our hospital at home, as you have to go to the basement. But at least I can just go put it in and then come back upstairs with Ariauna for awhile. It makes a lot of running back and forth to switch the laundry around, but at least I can be here with her in between. I worked on laundry for awhile this afternoon and made Ariauna some more top ramen. She for some reason is really liking it. The doctors say that after transplant they have no taste buds because the chemo kills them all off so most kids like spicy, salty and sour things. And the seasoning on top ramen can be a bit salty. This evening Ariauna took her pain meds for the first time orally, it took some bribery but she got it down. We worked on her homework and got it all done so it is ready for tomorrow when her teacher comes and then she wanted to ride her trike again. So we went out in the hall and did three full loops around the unit. She does really good while she is out there, but then she is pretty darn tired for awhile. We face timed with our friend Tammy and her kids and then we got Ariauna all creamed up for the night and ready for bed. Right before bed she took her Protonix (tummy acid med) orally and again with some bribery got it down. She has to keep reminding herself of the goal to go back to the RMH and that she has to be taking her meds orally to do that.  We had a pretty good day today!

Today we are so grateful for the little bit of sunshine we got to experience! It is amazing what a little bit of fresh air can do for the soul. It is amazing how much you truly miss when you are stuck inside a building for over a month. We definitely take for granted the beautiful things outside when we are in the midst of our busy lives. I can not even explain the peaceful, quiet feeling that Ariauna and I had as we sat outside on the bench and just took in the beauty of the sky, the birds flying high, the warmth of the sun, the beautiful flowers and bushes, the beautiful green grass and green tree's..... In case I have not told you, it is absolutely beautiful in Minnesota.... Beautiful enough, that I would move here.....If they had some mountains!!  I am so grateful today to have had a few moments to reflect on my Heavenly Father and the beautiful world he has created. It was a precious moment I will never forget as I took Ariauna outside for the first time as a new little 25 day old body to see the world and enjoy the fresh air. Today was a big day for her.... As sometimes BMT patients do not do real well when they go outside and are out in the open with air, smells, pollens, flowers, etc. I hope her new little body and cells handled it okay. Thank you Lord for creating such a beautiful world to live in and for being with my sweet Ariauna every step of this journey and allowing us the opportunity to realize the "little" things that we sometimes take for granted.  Much love to you all!