It looks like Serenity can go home tomorrow!

This is Day 7 of my baby, Serenity, being diagnosed with and treated for Leukemia.  Day 6 is here.

Depending on how her bloodwork looks tomorrow, Serenity is doing well enough that her Oncologist is ready to discharge her!  Her blood counts are way up – not anywhere near a typical healthy person – but up enough that she is stable and can function safely outside the hospital.  She’s still imuno-compromised and we’ll have to be very careful, but she’s out of the high risk zone.  It’s all contingent on how her blood is doing tomorrow, so cross your fingers with us that they’ll be good and she’ll be able to go home!

She was doing well enough today that she was able to leave the room and ride around the ICS Ward in a toy car.  She still had to wear a mask, which she hated at first but decided it was worth wearing over going back in her room.  She spent about half an hour riding around and looking out the big picture windows at the mountains and city.  It was pretty exciting for her to be able to get out of this boring room, but she was pretty worn out by the end of it.

She didn’t throw up at all today, her new anti-nausea drug, Zofran, is doing wonders for her!  She did a pretty good job of taking all her meds today and ate a decent amount of food.  Her tastes have changed quite a bit, but we found something today that she definately loves – cheese sandwiches!

The dramatic part of the day was getting the dressing changed on her port catheter. 

 You can see here that there is a LOT of tape holding her needle in place.  All of that had to come off and it was a pretty painful process.  Fortunately, she doesn’t have to normally have that much tape on.  It’s only dressed like that when it is first installed.  Her new and all future dressings are much better designed.  Here’s what a port catheter looks like when it is “accessed” which means the needle is in.  This may look rough, but it is definately a blessing for her to have since she won’t have to be stuck over and over by needles drawing blood and giving her treatments over the next 2 years.

She’s still crying in this picture from having all that tape removed.  The black part with the white wings is the port needle, the other bandages are the insertion points from her surgery.

So, having cancer aside, things are really looking up and improving.  Hopefully we can go home tomorrow!

UPDATE: We made it home!  Day 9 is here.

The story of Serenity’s battle with Leukemia begins here.